Effect on beam profile of Ti alloy plate fabrication from powder by sputter-less selective laser melting

Titanium alloy (Ti-6Al-4V) ,which has a crystal orientation of α+β type, are clinical employed for an artificial bone and a hard tissue implant for human body because of light, nonmagnetic, weather resistance and biocompatibility, but it is difficult to form a complicated structure, as a bionic structure, owing to a difficult-to-cut machine material. Thus, titanium alloy plates were fabricated by selective laser melting (SLM) in vacuum. Melting and solidification process were captured with high speed video camera, it was found that sputter was depended on the surface roughness. The sputter-less fabrication for SLM in vacuum was developed to minimize the surface roughness to 0.6μm at the laser scanning speed of 10mm/s. It was also determined that crystal orientation was evaluated with X-ray diffraction (XRD). It was recorded from the powder peaks of α (1011), α (0002), α (1010), and α (1012) that the crystal orientation is composed mainly of martensitic alpha by XRD analysis. Diffraction peaks corresponding to β (110) were detected in vacuum SLM processed samples.