Session: 03-04 Metals: Discontinuities and Defects

Paper Number: 93490

93490 - Porosity Characterization and Mechanical Properties of Ti6al4v Produced by Laser Powder Bed Fusion 

Laser Powder Bed Fusion (LPBF) technologies are emerging as a new manufacturing candidate to produce critical parts for several sectors. The opportunity to predict the mechanical properties based on non-destructive testing such as X-ray Computed Tomography (XCT) helps avoid expensive experimentations and provides a practical solution for process optimization. In this work, the tensile behavior of Ti6Al4V parts fabricated via LPBF was examined and correlated with the porosity structure detected using XCT. Different combinations of process parameters (power, hatch distance, point distance, and exposure time) were tested while keeping the same volumetric energy density. The tensile properties did not vary (Ultimate tensile strength 1235±24 MPa, elongation 4.33±1.4%) despite the significant variation of the individual process parameters. The ANOVA analysis confirms that the process parameters do not influence the tensile behavior. The porosity structure of all the specimens before testing was explored using both synthetic indexes and functional data. The objective of the XCT analysis is to verify that as the tensile properties do not vary, the porosity structure is equal among all specimens. Functional ANOVA, a generalization of ANOVA, was used to assess statistical differences in the pores’ volume and position distributions of the specimens produced at the different combinations of process parameters.

Presenting Author: Stefania Cacace Politecnico di Milano

Presenting Author Biography: She received her MSc in Management Engineering in 2014; she received her Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering in Politecnico di Milano in 2019. She continued her education in Politecnico as a Post-Doc researcher, and now she currently holds the position of Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering in Politecnico. <br/>She conducts research mainly on the topic of Advanced Manufacturing processes, in particular Laser Powder Bed Fusion. She covers different topics, such as process optimization, mechanical characterization using destructive and non-destructive techniques, and powder analysis. The research approach is based on a robust methodological approach exploiting design of the experiment techniques and statistical data analysis.

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