2022, Pilz, Stefan, Gustmann, Tobias, Günther, Fabian, Zimmermann, Martina, Kühn, Uta, Gebert, Annett

The ß-type Ti-42Nb alloy was processed by laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) with an infrared top hat laser configuration aiming to control the Young’s modulus by creating an adapted crystallographic texture. Utilizing a top hat laser, a microstructure with a strong 〈0 0 1〉 texture parallel to the building direction and highly elongated grains was generated. This microstructure results in a strong anisotropy of the Young’s modulus that was modeled based on the single crystal elastic tensor and the experimental texture data. Tensile tests along selected loading directions were conducted to study the mechanical anisotropy and showed a good correlation with the modeled data. A Young’s modulus as low as 44 GPa was measured parallel to the building direction, which corresponds to a significant reduction of over 30% compared to the Young’s modulus of the Gaussian reference samples (67–69 GPa). At the same time a high 0.2% yield strength of 674 MPa was retained. The results reveal the high potential of LPBF processing utilizing a top hat laser configuration to fabricate patient-specific implants with an adapted low Young’s modulus along the main loading direction and a tailored mechanical biofunctionality.

2022, Hariharan, Avinash, Goldberg, Phil, Gustmann, Tobias, Maawad, Emad, Pilz, Stefan, Schell, Frederic, Kunze, Tim, Zwahr, Christoph, Gebert, Annett

Additive manufacturing of near β-type Ti-13Nb-13Zr alloys using the laser powder bed fusion process (LPBF) opens up new avenues to tailor the microstructure and subsequent macro-scale properties that aids in developing new generation patient-specific, load-bearing orthopedic implants. In this work, we investigate a wide range of LPBF parameter space to optimize the volumetric energy density, surface characteristics and melt track widths to achieve a stable process and part density of greater than 99 %. Further, optimized sample states were achieved via thermal post-processing using standard capability aging, super-transus (900 °C) and sub-transus (660 °C) heat treatment strategies with varying quenching mediums (air, water and ice). The applied heat treatment strategies induce various fractions of α, martensite (α', α'') in combination with the β phase and strongly correlated with the observed enhanced mechanical properties and a relatively low elastic modulus. In summary, our work highlights a practical strategy for optimizing the mechanical and corrosion properties of a LPBF produced near β-type Ti-13Nb-13Zr alloy via careful evaluation of processing and post-processing steps and the interrelation to the corresponding microstructures. Corrosion studies revealed excellent corrosion resistances of the heat-treated LPBF samples comparable to wrought Ti-13Nb-13Zr alloys.

2022, Gebhardt, Ulrike, Gustmann, Tobias, Giebeler, Lars, Hirsch, Franz, Hufenbach, Julia Kristin, Kästner, Markus

Additive manufacturing overcomes the restrictions of classical manufacturing methods and enables the production of near-net-shaped, complex geometries. In that context, lattice structures are of high interest due to their superior weight reduction potential. AlSi10Mg is a well-known alloy for additive manufacturing and well suited for such applications due to its high strength to material density ratio. It has been selected in this study for producing bulk material and complex geometries of a strut-based lattice type (rhombic dodecahedron). A detailed characterisation of as-built and heat-treated specimens has been conducted including microstructural analyses, identification of imperfections and rigorous mechanical testing under different load conditions. An isotropic elastic–plastic material model is deduced on the basis of tension test results of bulk material test specimens. Performed experiments under compression, shear, torsion and tension load are compared to their virtual equivalents. With the help of numerical modelling, the overall structural behaviour was simulated using the detailed lattice geometry and was successfully predicted by the presented numerical models. The discussion of the limits of this approach aims to evaluate the potential of the numerical assessment in the modelling of the properties for novel lightweight structures.