Development of a technique for testing of tensile properties with miniature size specimens for metal additive manufacturing

The study of mechanical properties of metals provides a basis to decide on the capability of a particular metal for a task and also to make predictions about its life. The concepts of stress, strain and strength of materials are employed in practically every engineering discipline. Mechanical properties such as stiffness, yield strength, tensile strength, ductility, toughness, impact resistance, creep resistance, fatigue resistance and others, influence the design, fabrication and service life of equipment. Therefore, more than one property is considered for the material selection process for an application. For complete understanding of any material and its feasibility for a particular application, inter-related mechanical properties have to be measured. Unfortunately, these properties cannot be measured in any single test. However, the tensile test can be used to measure a number of the most commonly used mechanical properties. Extensive research has already been performed in this area. Standards have been developed and established regarding the size of test specimens, testing procedures and process parameters. This thesis discusses the development of a testing procedure for non-standard tensile tests for evaluation of material properties. Miniature test specimens similar to the standard ASTM E8 were designed and used for testing. The tests were mainly conducted on the baseline material for aerospace industry i.e. Ti-6Al-4V --Abstract, page iv