The Microstructural Revolution of Ti-6Al-4V Specimens Fabricated by Selective Laser Sintering of Pre-alloyed Powders

Selective laser sintering (SLS) is known as a cutting-edge technique to manufacture complex geometry products. Among various kinds of materials, Ti-6Al-4V is one of the most popular materials for the SLS process. The as-built Ti-6Al-4V products were widely applied in many applications such as aerospace, automobile, and especially in medical and implant parts. The purpose of this research is to investigate the microstructure and other properties of Ti6Al4V pre-alloyed powders produced by selective laser sintering technique. Through this research, the direct fabrication of Ti6Al4V metal object by SLS machine has been carried out using MetalSys250 machine. Different parameters of the SLS process were used to produce 1cm x1cmx1cm cubic samples and then microstructure, as well as mechanical properties of the as-built samples were investigated. Powder particles are fully dense, possess a spherical shape and are composed of acicular α phase. The as-build sample shows the oriented acicular martensitic phase with the defined columnar grain structures