Ti–6Al–4V and stainless steel 316L have been processed by selective laser melting under similar conditions, and their microstructures and mechanical behaviours have been compared in details. Under the investigated conditions, Ti–6Al–4V exhibits a more complex behaviour than stainless steel 316L with respect to the occurrence of microstructural and mechanical anisotropy. Moreover, Ti–6Al–4V appears more sensitive to the build-up of internal stresses when compared with stainless steel 316L, whereas stainless steel 316L appears more prone to the formation of ‘lack of melting’ defects. This correlates nicely with the difference in thermal conductivity between the two materials. Thermal conductivity was shown to increase strongly with increasing temperature and the thermophysical properties appeared to be influenced by variations in the initial metallurgical state.

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In this study, samples of alloy Ti-6Al-4V have been processed by different additive manufacturing techniques in order to compare the resulting microstructure. In all three processes, ultrafast cooling gives rise to strongly out-of-equilibrium microstructures. However, the specific of the heat flow in each process lead to significant differences as far as the grains orientation and the resulting microstructural anisotropy are concerned.

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The microstructure directly influences the subsequent mechanical properties of materials. In the manufactured parts, the elaboration processes set the microstructure features such as phase types or the characteristics of defects and grains. In this light, this article aims to understand the evolution of the microstructure during the directed energy deposition (DED) manufacturing process of Ti6Al4V alloy. It sets out a new concept of time-phase transformation-block (TTB). This innovative segmentation of the temperature history in different blocks allows us to correlate the thermal histories computed by a 3D finite element (FE) thermal model and the final microstructure of a multilayered Ti6Al4V alloy obtained from the DED process. As a first step, a review of the state of the art on mechanisms that trigger solid-phase transformations of Ti6Al4V alloy is carried out. This shows the inadequacy of the current kinetic models to predict microstructure evolution during DED as multiple values are reported for transformation start temperatures. Secondly, a 3D finite element (FE) thermal simulation is developed and its results are validated against a Ti6Al4V part representative of repair technique using a DED process. The building strategy promotes the heat accumulation and the part exhibits heterogeneity of hardness and of the nature and the number of phases. Within the generated thermal field history, three points of interest (POI) representative of different microstructures are selected. An in-depth analysis of the thermal curves enables distinguishing solid-phase transformations according to their diffusive or displacive mechanisms. Coupled with the state of the art, this analysis highlights both the variable character of the critical points of transformations, and the different phase transformation mechanisms activated depending on the temperature value and on the heating or cooling rate. The validation of this approach is achieved by means of a thorough qualitative description of the evolution of the microstructure at each of the POI during DED process. The new TTB concept is thus shown to provide a flowchart basis to predict the final microstructure based on FE temperature fields.

Laser cladding is an economic layer-by-layer near-net-shape process for the production and the repair of metallic parts. In this process, a metallic powder is projected onto a substrate while being molten by a laser beam. Laser sources with fairly high power -i.e. typically 2kW − are often used to ensure short building times and high productivity. However, this approach has limitations. Indeed, it is very difficult to produce thin walls at high laser power. Moreover, an increase of the incident energy may give rise to a relatively coarser microstructure, and this will in turn affect the mechanical properties of the component. In order to address these issues, this paper aims at assessing the potential of a laser source with a lower maximum power of 300W to enhance the flexibility of the process. Two types of samples -i.e. thin walls or bulk deposits − were produced at low laser power from alloy Ti-6Al-4V. Their geometry, microstructures and local hardness are characterised and correlated with the thermal history experienced during fabrication.