Abstract
The microstructural morphology in additive manufacturing (AM) has a significant influence on the building structure. High-energy concentric heat source scanning leads to rapid heating and cooling during material deposition. This results in a unique microstructure. The size and morphology of the microstructure have a strong directionality, which depends on laser power, scanning rate, melt pool fluid dynamics, and material thermal properties, etc. The grain structure significantly affects its resistance to solidification cracking and mechanical properties. Microstructure control is challenging for AM considering multiple process parameters. A preheating base plate has a significant influence on residual stress, defect-free AM structure, and it also minimizes thermal mismatch during the deposition. In the present work, a simple single track deposition experiment was designed to analyze base plate preheating on microstructure. The microstructural evolution at different preheating temperatures was studied in detail, keeping process parameters constant. The base plate was heated uniformly from an external heating source and set the stable desired temperature on the surface of the base plate before deposition. A single track was deposited on the base plate at room temperature and preheating temperatures of 200 °C, 300 °C, 400 °C, and 500 °C. Subsequently, the resulting microstructural morphologies were analyzed and compared. The microstructure was evaluated using electron backscattered diffraction (EBSD) imaging in the transverse and longitudinal sections. An increase in grain size area fraction was observed as the preheating temperature increased. Base plate preheating did not show influence on grain boundary misorientation. An increase in the deposition depth was noticed for higher base plate preheating temperatures. The results were convincing that grain morphology and columnar grain orientation can be tailored by base plate preheating.
Highlights
Directed energy deposition (DED) is a well-known additive manufacturing (AM) process because of its unique application
The microstructure developed from single track deposition on the base plate at room temperature is compared to the morphological change caused by different base plate preheating temperatures
Without Preheating (WPH) electron backscattered diffraction (EBSD) grain mapping shown in Figure 5 depicts grain formation in the fusion zone (FZ) region
Summary
Directed energy deposition (DED) is a well-known additive manufacturing (AM) process because of its unique application. The material in the form of powder/wire is supplied directly to the melt pool created by a high-energy laser/electron beam on the target surface [1,2,3] This enables the depositing of the material on an irregular surface. This technique allows a combination of materials to be supplied into the melt pool This technique has applications like repairing engineering components, surface coating, and compositionally graded materials deposition. Microstructural tuning in order to tailor mechanical properties has great importance. It is evident from the extensive literature in metal AM [4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14]. Melt pool solidification, solidification texture, the temperature gradient in the melt pool, the affect of cooling rate on morphology, and size of the microstructure are reported for AM [15,16,17,18]
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