Production of different titanium alloys by wire arc additive manufacturing and investigation of mechanical properties

The additive manufacturing is a novel method has been developed as an alternative to conventional manufacturing methods, also called a three-dimensional (3D) printing technology. Wire arc additive manufacturing (WAAM) which wire is used as raw material, has become an important research subject with its high deposition rates, close to near net shape manufacturing and cheap set up prices. In this study, titanium alloys were used, which have important usage areas in the aerospace and biomedical industries due to low density and high strengths. Three different types of titanium alloys (α, α+β and β) as pure titanium (Gr2), Ti6Al4V (Gr5) and Ti15V3Cr3Al3Sn were manufactured by Plasma wire arc additive manufacturing (PWAAM) method and their microstructures and mechanical properties were investigated. Large parts can be manufacture by using WAAM method, the substrate on which the accumulation is made is considered together with the model planned to be obtained at the designing stage. For pure titanium and Ti6Al4V alloys to investigate the use of the substate with the additive manufacturing, the transition zone in deposition, microstructure and mechanical properties were examined and compared. For Ti15V3Cr3Al3Sn alloy, the applicability of PWAAM method and post deposition heat treatment effects were investigated. It has been determined that the tensile strength of pure titanium manufacturing with PWAAM is 60% better than the substrate. In addition, better hardness and same wear resistance values were obtained. In Ti6Al4V alloy, although the hardness of material obtained by PWAAM is 80% better than substrate, the tensile strength and wear resistance are lower due to titanium oxide formed in during manufacturing. The Ti15V3Cr3Al3Sn alloy was determined that tensile strength increased with post manufacturing solution heat treatment and the hardness value increased by ~50 HV with the solution + aging heat treatment.