Fracture Toughness and Fatigue Crack Propagation Testing and Evaluation of Additive Manufactured Titanium Alloy Metals at Different Orientations by Electron Beam Melting

Abstract

Certain Naval applications use titanium based components which offer outstanding structural benefit. While risk to mission capability can be reduced by having a wide assortment of spare parts available, one small material item can place a unit in a mission hold status. The next step for the U.S. Military is to consider additive manufacturing for quality controlled use. Two experiments were conducted to further understand the materials produced by an ARCAM A2X machine with Ti-6Al-4V powder. The first experiment tested fracture toughness of specimens made from brand new powder. The second experiment tested the fatigue crack growth rate of specimens made from powder that had been reused. These two experiments also studied the effects build orientation has on material properties by conducting the first two tests with specimens at four different orientations; 0°, 30°, 60°, and 90° relative to the XY build plane.