Fatigue Property of Additively Manufactured Ti-6Al-4V under Nonproportional Multiaxial Loading

Abstract

The low cycle fatigue strength properties of the additively manufactured Ti-6Al-4V alloy are experimentally investigated under proportional and nonproportional multiaxial loading. The fatigue tests were conducted using hollow cylinder specimens with and without heat treatments, at room temperature in air. Two fatigue tests were conducted: one for proportional loading and one for nonproportional loading. The proportional loading was represented by a push-pull strain path (PP) and the nonproportional loading by a circle strain path (CI). The failure lives of the additively manufactured specimens were clearly reduced drastically by internal voids and defects. However, the sizes of the defects were measured, and the defects were found not to cause a reduction in fatigue strength above a critical size. The fracture surface was observed using scanning electron microscopy to investigate the fracture mechanisms of the additively manufactured specimens under the two types of strain paths. Different fracture patterns were recognized for each strain paths; however, both showed retention of the crack propagation, despite the presence of numerous defects, probably because of the interaction of the defects. The crack propagation properties of the materials with numerous defects under nonproportional multiaxial loading were clarified to increase the reliability of the additively manufactured components.