Powder bed fusion repair of titanium with surface damage: Molecular dynamics study on microstructure and mechanical properties

Abstract

Additive manufacturing has been emerging as a highly efficient method that minimizes the consumption of virgin materials and energy to rapidly repair the damaged parts and potentially recover the original performance. Here, the microstructures and mechanical properties of polycrystalline titanium (Ti) with surface damage after powder bed fusion (PBF) repair and post-polishing treatment are investigated by molecular dynamics simulations. It is found that during PBF repair of the surface damage by melting Ti nanoparticles, grain boundaries (GBs) in polycrystalline Ti are more susceptible to damage from temperature elevation than the grain interiors. During the solidification process, grains grow in the form of columnar crystals. After PBF repair and post-polishing treatment, the yield strength of damaged samples is recovered to 96.8% of that of perfect ones. This restoration can be attributed to the increased capacity of carrying dislocations due to that the GB directional growth generates dislocation walls after PBF repair. More importantly, the flow stress exceeds that of the perfect sample due to the increase in stacking faults and the appearance of twins after PBF repair, which enhance the resistance of dislocation motion. The fatigue performance of the damaged samples processed by combinatorial PBF repair and post-polishing treatment is found to surpass that of perfect samples. This is attributed to that the elimination of rough surface and the reduction of intragranular dislocations avoid dislocation entanglement that otherwise results in strain concentration, and also prevent the premature occurrence of twins and the rapid increase in stacking faults during the cyclic loading, thus retarding the nucleation of intergranular cracks. Our molecular dynamics simulation results could help shed light on the atomic mechanism of microstructure evolution during PBF repair and mechanical performance after PBF repair.