Anisotropic tensile behavior of laser powder-bed fusion made Ti5553 parts

Directional heating during metal additive manufacturing promotes the growth of a columnar-grained microstructure along the building direction with a preferred crystal orientation, which results in anisotropy of properties. In this work, the anisotropy of laser powder bed fused Ti-5553 metastable β titanium alloy components are investigated. Samples printed in the normal (vertically printed), and parallel (horizontally printed) orientations to the building direction were subjected to quasi-static uniaxial tensile tests. In comparison, samples printed parallel to the building direction exhibit a significantly higher ultimate strength of 846 ± 6 MPa, whereas the samples printed normal to the building direction reached 780 ± 10 MPa. Fracture initiation and propagation were investigated using interrupted tensile testing. The fracture path of partially fractured specimens reveals the development of slip bands oriented at a 45 ± 5° angle with respect to the loading direction, which promoted fracture by coalescence of aligned pores. Electron backscatter diffraction results indicate that the grain boundaries act as favorable nucleation sites for fracture initiation, particularly when they align perpendicular to the loading direction. Conversely, fracture in samples printed parallel to the building direction was predominantly transgranular, which is expected to be a major contributing factor to the higher strength observed.