An Innovative Approach on Directed Energy Deposition Optimization: A Study of the Process Environment’s Influence on the Quality of Ti-6Al-4V Samples

Abstract

Blown powder additive manufacturing technologies are not restricted to the use of a process chamber. This feature allows to build larger components with respect to conventional powder bed processes. This peculiarity is mostly promising for manufacturing large components or repairing/rebuilding parts of large systems. The main downside of using an open environment, even if a protective shielding gas system is adopted, is the lack of control of process atmosphere. This is particularly critical for titanium alloys which are very sensitive to oxygen/nitrogen pick-up; they have a detrimental effect on ductility, by causing embrittlement and possibly leading to the formation of cracks. It is then important to address how environmental factors, such as process atmosphere and platform temperature, impact not only on the processability but also on the final component properties, both from a compositional and mechanical point of view. The correlations between these environmental factors and microstructure, interstitials content, grain size, and hardness were investigated. Moreover, the Hall–Petch equation was then adopted to additive manufacturing microstructures, characterized by a columnar grain morphology, and used to further investigate the relationship intercurring between grains and hardness and how different microstructures might influence this correlation.