Effect of laser power on the microstructure and microhardness property of hybrid fabricated ti6al4v based metal matrix composite

Abstract: Several surface coatings on Ti-6Al-4V alloy using laser treatment technique have been investigated in this paper. A hybrid Ti-6Al-4V based metal matrix composites system was also successfully fabricated. This was possible using three hoper system which contained 3.8 vol. % of Ti-6Al-4V and a small amount 0.1 B4C and 0.1 BN respectively. Two different laser powers “2000 W and 1400 W with scanning speed of 1.0 were employed. The idea of these powder coatings and reason for investigating the different Laser power is to evaluate the influence of laser power on the surface morphology and hardness property of Ti-6Al-4V/B4C/BN alloy systems. The hardness result of experimental showed a general improvement. The hardness revealed that the Ti-6Al- 4V/B4C/BN system fabricated at 2000W showed a hardness improvement as high as 640.4 HVO.5 compared to the as receive Ti-6Al-4V substrate Hardness value of about 357.3 HVO.5 and that of 1400W recorded a hardness value of 886 HVO.5. The percentage increase from the as received Ti-6Al-4V alloy was 147.9% and 79.2% respectively. Problems to be solved and the prospective application of laser modification of the hybrid titanium alloy formed were also highlighted