Multi-particle FEM modeling on hot isostatic pressing of Ti6Al4V powders

Abstract

The hot isostatic pressing (HIP) of Ti6Al4V powders was systematically simulated in two dimensions by using multi-particle finite element method (MPFEM) from particulate scale. Different initial packing structures formed by three kinds of powders (i.e. mono-sized powder, binary powder, and powder with normal size distribution) were firstly constructed. Subsequently, the effects of capsule shape, HIP procedure, temperature, pressure, as well as the powder type on the densification behavior of different Ti6Al4V compacts were investigated and discussed. The macroscopic property like relative density and various microscopic properties such as coordination number, stress/strain distributions of capsule and particles, deformation degree, pore filling behavior, densification mechanism and so on were quantitatively characterized. The results indicate that a larger aspect ratio (AR) is more likely to induce local order packing structure during particle rearrangement, and the proportion of powder particles with more regular deformation of Ti6Al4V compact increases after HIP. The total strain energy and deformation mechanisms of Ti6Al4V compacts are quite different with different HIP procedures. With the rise of temperature, the equivalent total strain of both the capsule and the particles became larger and the equivalent Von Mises stress decreased after HIP. In addition, Ti6Al4V powders with different size ratios will affect the performance of the compact in HIP process. The larger the particle size, the smaller the strain acting on the particle, the closer the roundness of the particle to 1. The Ti6Al4V compacts with different particle size distributions were found to exhibit different densification mechanisms. For packing of mono-sized powder, particle rearrangement destroyed bridging structure and large pores so as to accelerate the densification process. While for the Ti6Al4V compacts formed by binary powder or the powder with normal size distribution, the densification mechanism can be inferred to the extreme deformation of small particles promoting relative rigid motion of large particles.