Texture of electron beam melted Ti-6Al-4V measured with neutron diffraction

Abstract

Texture in materials is important as it contributes to anisotropy in the bulk mechanical properties. Ti-6Al-4V built with the additive manufacturing process (AM) electron beam melting (EBM) has been found to have anisotropic mechanical properties. Therefore, this work has been performed to investigate the texture variations of EBM built Ti-6Al-4V with neutron time of flight (TOF). For the work, samples were produced with different build geometries off-set by 90 degrees. A cast sample was additionally analyzed to investigate the bulk texture of conventionally manufactured material. Microstructural characterization was performed and the cast material was found to have a coarse colony α microstructure, whereas the EBM built material had a finer basket weave microstructure. Overall, the texture of the EBM built material was found to be weak having an multiple of random distribution (MRD) index of ~1 for the α phase, whilst the cast material possessed more than twice the amount of preferred orientation i.e. MRD 2.51 for the α phase.