Laser Based Additive Manufacturing Technology for Fabrication of Titanium Aluminide-Based Composites in Aerospace Component Applications

Titanium aluminides has the potential of replacing nickel-based superalloys in the aerospace industries because its density is almost half that of nickel-based alloys. Nevertheless, the room temperature properties (ductility) have made the wider application of this class of intermetallic alloy far from being realized. This has led to various research been carried out in adjusting the production processing and/or material through alloying, heat treatment, ingot metallurgy, powder metallurgy and most recently additive manufacturing processing. One of the additive manufacturing processing of titanium aluminide is laser engineered net shaping (LENS). It is used to produce components from powders by melting and forming on a substrate based on a computer-aided design (CAD) to shape the components. This contribution will focus on the laser processing of titanium aluminides components for aerospace applications. Also, the challenges confronting this processing techniques as well as suggested finding to solve the problems would be outlined. The objective of this work is to present an insight into how titanium aluminides components have been developed by researchers with emphasis on aerospace applications