Influence of Medium–High Temperature Annealing on Microstructure and Properties of High-Power Laser Melting Deposited Ti-6Al-4V Alloy

Abstract

A high-power laser melting deposition (HP-LMD) device with a maximum output of 5 kW was developed to enhance the production efficiency of fabricating large-scale titanium components. In this study, the medium–high temperature annealing strategy was proposed, wherein the effects of holding temperature and holding time on the residual stress, microstructure evolution, and mechanical properties of the fabricated block were evaluated. The results showed that the residual stress on the surface of the fabricated blocks reduced significantly after annealing treatment. The microstructure of as-deposited Ti-6Al-4V alloy mainly consisted of α’ martensite and basket-weave microstructure, and the aspect ratio of the martensite decreased from 22 to 6 with the increases in annealing temperature and holding time. In addition, the annealing treatments had a favorable benefit on the microhardness and tensile performance of the HP-LMD fabricated Ti-6Al-4V alloy. The optimum annealing treatment was 650 °C/2 h followed by furnace cooling. The tensile samples processed by the optimum annealing treatment exhibited excellent properties with a yield strength of 912 MPa and an elongation of 11.48%, which far exceeded the Chinese aviation standard. In addition, the results of the statistical analysis revealed that the tensile properties of heat-treated samples were superior to as-deposited samples when the aspect ratio of martensite was in the range of 9–14. The fracture mode of both the as-deposited samples and annealed samples was ductile fracture.