The positive effect of hot isostatic pressing on improving the anisotropies of bending and impact properties in selective laser melted Ti-6Al-4V alloy

Selective laser melting (SLM) is a versatile additive manufacturing process for fabricating solid or porous metallic materials with complicated three-dimensional shapes. SLM Ti alloys, particularly Ti-6Al-4V, and other alloys have been manufactured and analyzed in numerous studies. However, the high anisotropy of the microstructures and inconsistent mechanical properties of SLM materials have been extensively reported, and these disadvantages could prohibit its widespread use. To clarify how to alleviate the anisotropic behaviors of SLM materials, the main objective of this study was to evaluate the influences of hot isostatic pressing (HIP) on the microstructure, densification, bending strength, impact toughness, and fracture behavior of the as-built Ti-6Al-4V alloy. The results showed that the vertical and horizontal building directions obviously affect the bending and impact properties of as-built alloys. The transverse rupture strength (TRS) and impact energy of the horizontally-built alloy were respectively found to be 48% and 100% higher than those of the vertically-built one. In the vertically-built alloy, disc-shaped building defects, identified by X-ray computed tomography (CT) and microscopy, obviously reduce the effective load-bearing cross-section and deteriorate the bending and impact performances. After HIP at 1000 °C/150 MPa, the α′-martensite structure in the as-built alloy is transformed into an α+β lamellar one, and the disc-shaped building defects are evidently eliminated. As a result, the impact energies of as-built vertical and horizontal specimens are improved by 28 J (560%) and 19 J (190%), respectively, and the TRS of the as-built vertical alloy is raised by 550 MPa (37%). Consequently, the discrepancies in TRS and impact energy between the HIPed vertical and horizontal specimens are merely 3% and 14%, respectively, and the anisotropic behaviors of the SLM Ti-6Al-4V alloy are thus substantially lessened.