Researchers develop novel bainitic titanium alloys for Additive Manufacturing
Researchers from RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia; Tescan Group, Brno, Czechia; and the University of North Texas, Denton, Texas, USA, have published a paper in Materials & Design focused on the development of novel bainitic alloys (Ti-Cu-Fe) designed for Additive Manufacturing.
Ti-Cu-Fe alloys are able to take advantage of constitutional supercooling to suppress the growth of large columnar grains usually associated with AM Ti alloys. ‘Novel bainitic Ti alloys designed for Additive Manufacturing’ demonstrates a viable way to fabricate structural components with unique and excellent properties using low-cost elemental powders with Additive Manufacturing.
Using the design concept and Directed Energy Deposition (DED) Additive Manufacturing, the researchers were able to manipulate the microstructure of solidification, producing equiaxed prior*-b* grains and the solid–solid phase transformation, producing a bainitic microstructure of α-phase and Ti2Cu phase within and matrix of retained b-phase. The AM of Fe up to 6 wt% as a b stabiliser avoids characteristic b-flecks.
According to researchers, there is greater potential for this alloy system for additional improvement of mechanical properties through grain boundary engineering and grain refinement through the introduction of further nucleation sites.
The paper is available to read here, in full.
