A substrate material and thickness influence on the 3D-printing of Ti–6Al–4V components via wire-feed electron beam additive manufacturing

This work investigated the substrate effect on the additive manufacturing, also known as 3D printing, of Ti–6Al–4V alloy products by the wire-feed electron beam additive manufacturing. It was shown that the etching degree and the shape of the layer bands, known as heat-affected zones, are determined by the heat dissipation rate during 3D printing. Increasing the temperature gradient using a grade 2 Ti substrate decreases the α-phase plate thickness to 0.56 μm and provides the highest material strength and microhardness values among all tested samples. It was found that using substrates of technically pure Ti, the Al content in the bottom part of the wall decreases due to a mutual diffusion of substrate and sample materials. At the same time, at the printing on a Ti–Al–Mo–V alloy substrate, Mo does not penetrate the deposited material volume. Finally, the optimal substrate variants are determined to achieve the highest strength and elongation of the additively manufactured material at the selected fabrication parameters.