Ursula Franklin MSE GRADUATE SEMINAR ​​​​​: Multiscale mechanical properties of additively manufactured titanium alloys

Additive manufacturing (AM) is leading a new era in metal fabrication across multiple industries, including the aerospace, automotive, and biomedical sectors. Titanium alloys are the leading additively manufactured metal components for the aerospace industry, owing to many advantages offered by AM production. However, most titanium alloys made by AM do not have satisfactory mechanical properties (low ductility and fatigue crack growth resistance) so that the number of AM titanium products used in industry remains limited. Titanium alloys generally consist of hexagonal-close-packed (HCP) α grains and body-centred-cubic phase (BCC) β grains. The mechanical performance of the bulk AM titanium parts largely depends on the deformation of the microscale α and β grains. In this seminar, I will present the mechanical properties of AM titanium alloy (take Ti-6Al-2Zr-Mo-V alloy as an example) at both grain-scale and bulk-scale, studied by novel high throughput nanoindentation mapping and in situ and ex situ macroscale mechanical testing, respectively. I aim to explore the origins of unsatisfied mechanical properties and propose new strategies to enhance the mechanical properties and consequently extend the applications of the AM titanium alloys.