Investigation of Tribological Performance of Ti-6Al-4V Alloy Processed by Selective Laser Melting and Electron Beam Melting Processes
type: CreativeWork
description: Powder bed fusion (PBF) additive manufacturing (AM) or 3D printing, either laser based or electron beam based, is a recent advanced manufacturing process and is being more widely applied industrially. Ti-6Al-4V alloy is a printable alloy and is the most commonly used alloy in PBF-AM for a wide range of applications. However, microstructures of the alloy manufactured by different processes are different and properties including tribological properties relating to the different microstructures need to be well understood. Furthermore, relevant to wear resistance of PBF proceed Ti-6Al-4V alloy, applying physical vapor deposition (PVD) coating and ion implantation surface treatment commonly applied to conventional processed Ti-6Al-4V parts need to be evaluated for AM parts. Thus, through a comprehensive series of wear testing and analysis, this study aims to understand the tribological behaviors of the Ti-6Al-4V samples processed by PBF and further by surface treatments. Dry linear reciprocating (sliding) wear tests were conducted to evaluate how wear rate (WR) of the alloy samples processed differently by selective laser melting (SLM), electron beam melting (EBM) and processed conventionally (CP) may differ under room temperature or elevated temperatures. The tests were conducted with a wide range of test conditions using WC-Co as counter material. Furthermore, dry sliding wear tests were conducted on PVD TiN coated and nitrogen ion implanted samples processed either by SLM or by CP, also using WC-Co as counter material. After wear testing, wear rates were measured and surface and cross-sectional features of wear tracks were examined in detail. Results have shown the expected increase in WR as applied normal load increases, but the dependence of WR on sliding frequency has been found very weak. The major finding is that WR is not affected by the alloy processed in different manufacturing routes having different microstructures and hardness values. It will be shown that …
abstract: Powder bed fusion (PBF) additive manufacturing (AM) or 3D printing, either laser based or electron beam based, is a recent advanced manufacturing process and is being more widely applied industrially. Ti-6Al-4V alloy is a printable alloy and is the most commonly used alloy in PBF-AM for a wide range of applications. However, microstructures of the alloy manufactured by different processes are different and properties including tribological properties relating to the different microstructures need to be well understood. Furthermore, relevant to wear resistance of PBF proceed Ti-6Al-4V alloy, applying physical vapor deposition (PVD) coating and ion implantation surface treatment commonly applied to conventional processed Ti-6Al-4V parts need to be evaluated for AM parts. Thus, through a comprehensive series of wear testing and analysis, this study aims to understand the tribological behaviors of the Ti-6Al-4V samples processed by PBF and further by surface treatments. Dry linear reciprocating (sliding) wear tests were conducted to evaluate how wear rate (WR) of the alloy samples processed differently by selective laser melting (SLM), electron beam melting (EBM) and processed conventionally (CP) may differ under room temperature or elevated temperatures. The tests were conducted with a wide range of test conditions using WC-Co as counter material. Furthermore, dry sliding wear tests were conducted on PVD TiN coated and nitrogen ion implanted samples processed either by SLM or by CP, also using WC-Co as counter material. After wear testing, wear rates were measured and surface and cross-sectional features of wear tracks were examined in detail. Results have shown the expected increase in WR as applied normal load increases, but the dependence of WR on sliding frequency has been found very weak. The major finding is that WR is not affected by the alloy processed in different manufacturing routes having different microstructures and hardness values. It will be shown that …
author: Li, Hua
keywords: Additive manufacturing, Microstructure, Wear rate, Physical vapor deposition, Nitrogen ion implantation
date published: 2021
date modified: 2026-07-27T18:46:16Z
provider: AUT University
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: AUT University