3D printing of biomimetic hierarchical surface textures using L-PBF for improving tribological performance of Ti6Al4V alloy

Abstract

Energy and material losses due to friction and wear during the use of materials bring about very serious costs in every sector. In order to minimize friction and wear losses of materials, different surface engineering applications are used, especially surface coatings, thermal, mechanical and thermochemical processes. On the other hand, it has been shown in recent years that the tribological properties of materials can be controlled by creating different types of biomimetic hierarchical patterns on the surface of materials. Therefore, this study investigates both the individual and the synergetic effects of both biomimetic surface textures and thermal oxidation process on the tribological performance of Ti6Al4 V alloy. For this purpose, hierarchical models were produced using the laser powder bed fusion (L-PBF) technique, which is one of the additive manufacturing methods. Snake skin, shark skin and tree frog models were used as biomimetic hierarchical models. Additionally, flat and random snake skin models were used to examine the effect of texture orientation. Moreover, thermal oxidation was carried out at 700 ⁰C for 2 h and 4 h and the wear tests were carried out using a reciprocation-type tribo-tester under dry and simulated body fluid (SBF) conditions. As the oxidation time increased, the hardness and surface roughness of the material increased. A significant improvement in the wear rate of biomimetic models was observed compared to the non-textured sample. Lower tribological performance was observed in the tree frog model (hexagonal geometry) compared to other biomimetic models due to the presence of sharp corners. In particular, the snakeskin model provided the best wear rate because it trapped wear residue and provided additional hydrodynamic pressure. The highest tribological performances for all samples were observed in the samples oxidized at 700 ⁰C for 4h.