Effect of heat treatment on microstructure and tribological behavior of Ti?6Al?4V alloys fabricated by selective laser melting

In this paper, the effect of heat treatment (760?1060 ?C) on tribological behavior of selective laser melted Ti6Al4V alloy against Si3N4 counter-ball under different applied loads was investigated. Results show the wear rate of as-built Ti6Al4V alloy increased firstly and then gradually decreased with increasing the heat-treatment temperature, which obtained the lowest value when the heat treatment temperature was 1060 ?C, exhibiting the best wear resistance. The higher applied load led to larger wear rate and lower coefficient of friction. The wear mechanism was strongly dependent on the microstructure transformation, micro-hardness and applied load, which was discussed in detail