Abstract
The ever-increasing demand for developing lightweight, high-temperature materials that can operate at elevated temperatures is still a subject of worldwide research and TiAl-based alloys have come to the fore. The conventional methods of manufacturing have been used successfully to manufacture the TiAl-based alloy. However, due to the inherent limitations of the conventional methods to produce large TiAl components with intricate near-net shapes has limit the widespread application and efficiency of the TiAl components produced using conventional methods. Metal additive manufacturing such as Electron Beam Melting technology could manufacture the TiAl alloys with intricate shapes but lack geometrical accuracy. Laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) technology could manufacture the TiAl-based alloys with intricate shapes with geometrical accuracy. However, the inherent high rate of heating and cooling mechanisms of the LPBF process failed to produce crack-free TiAl components. Various preheating techniques have been experimented, to reduce the high thermal gradient and residual stress during the LPBF process that causes the cracking of the TiAl components. Although these techniques have not reached industrial readiness up to now, encouraging results have been achieved.
Highlights
Titanium aluminides (TiAl) based alloys represent an important class of high-temperature structural materials providing a unique set of physical and mechanical properties that can lead to substantial payoffs in aircraft engines, industrial gas turbines, and automotive parts [1]
Due to the preheating system, the powder bed remains at high temperature in the order of 1000 °C [22] causing the thermal gradient and residual stress to be lowered resulting in the manufacturing of crack-free TiAlbased alloys
As a result of the inherent limitations posed by the electron beam melting (EBM), researchers begin to experiment with other Powder bed fusion (PBF) technologies such as Laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) manufacturing process which have demonstrated a great geometrical accuracy when used for other metal alloys such as titanium and steel based alloys [17,29,30]
Summary
Titanium aluminides (TiAl) based alloys represent an important class of high-temperature structural materials providing a unique set of physical and mechanical properties that can lead to substantial payoffs in aircraft engines, industrial gas turbines, and automotive parts [1]. The mechanical properties of a material are the main determining factors for qualifying it for a specific application [13], for improved energy efficiency and power for highly engineered products; such as the aircraft engines, industrial gas turbines and automotive parts, near-net shapes that would enhance the geometrical, technical and functional properties of the components has become very paramount These functional requirements of near-net shapes of complex geometries (e.g. back tapers, intricate cooling channels, customized porous structures, and special lattices or hollow structures) make additive manufacturing (AM) an attractive manufacturing technology to be exploited for manufacturing TiAlbased alloys with specific geometrical characteristics for the high-temperature operations. The limitations of using the classical methods of producing bulk TiAl-based alloys have put materials science researchers on the urge of experimenting with metal additive manufacturing (MAM) technologies such as powder bed fusion for possible solutions
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