The electropolishing of electron beam melting, additively manufactured TI6AL4V titanium : relevance, process parameters and surface finish.

Abstract

Additive Manufacturing (AM) is the next frontier in manufacturing technology, but with this new frontier comes new challenges in post processing techniques. In an attempt to gain further knowledge of the post processing of metal AM components, the Electropolishing (EP) of Electron Beam Melting (EBM), Additively Manufactured Ti6Al-4V alloy parts is investigated in the following work. Additive Manufacturing (AM) is predominant in a number of industries, with electronics and consumer goods, aerospace, automotive and medical constituting the majority of AM sales. For most of these, Powder Bed Fusion (PBF) AM technology is of great interest given the ability of PBF to manufacture using metallic materials. Within metal PBF, there are a number of alloys considered most useful for their existing commonality in industry, good compatibility with metal PBF, and principally performance characteristics, with the most popular of these metals being Ti-6Al-4V. Given that many of the intended applications of Ti-6Al-4V parts require good fatigue performance (such as in engine and structural components) and that surface finish is one of the leading limits to fatigue life, the surface finish improvement of AM Ti-6Al-4V a pressing need. Since AM parts inherently contain difficult, if not impossible to reach, features using traditional methods, EP may be