Wire arc additive manufacturing of commercially pure titanium bio-medical alloy

Abstract

Metal additive manufacturing deploys metallic powder or wire as a feedstock to fabricate metallic parts by direct fusion in a layer-by-layer manner. Wire feedstock-based additive manufacturing provides certain advantages such as a higher rate of deposition, high density, and lower material wastage with less capital required. This study reports the Wire Arc Additive Manufacturing (WAAM) of Commercially Pure Titanium (CP Ti) and its microstructure, mechanical properties, and biocompatibility. A single-track deposition is performed to know the optimum parameters for wall structure deposition. The heat treatment is carried out to achieve desired phase transformation followed by Laser Shock Peening (LSP) as post-processing. The as-built samples showed dominant α-phase + β-phase while the content of β-phase increased after heat treatment at 900 °C. the thickness of LSP affected layer is observed to be 43.4476 µm along the cross-section. The hardness reduced after heat treatment and increased after LSP post processing. LSPed zone exhibited higher average hardness of ∼ 225 HV while that of the 30 min and 90 min heat treated samples is ∼ 180 HV0.1 and ∼ 160 HV0.1, respectively. A better antibacterial test is performed to study the inhibition zone on samples. The LSPed sample surface in the biocompatibility test. The LSPed samples showed better antibacterial effect.