Assessment of the heat parameters influence on the process of electron-beam printing of titanium alloy Ti64
Introduction. At present, mainly conventional manufacturing methods, including isothermal forging/forming of hemispheres from titanium alloy workpieces with subsequent welding, are used to create essential components made of titanium alloys, such as high-pressure balloons for rocket engines. These methods are mainly complex multi-stage processes, and therefore the production of titanium balloons can take a very long time and entail high material costs. The technology of wire-feed electron-beam additive manufacturing considered in this work has become proven in the worldwide scientific and industrial community as a technology that allows increasing the productivity of the manufacturing process of various metal components, as well as reducing material costs by minimizing mechanical treatments. However, despite a large number of advantages of this method, technological features of the process, including geometrical parameters of the printed part, such as shape and height of the structure, the angle of the wall inclination from the printing plane, and others, have a significant impact on the formed structure. This is due to the fact that the heat process parameters for different configurations of the printed product will have a different impact on the formation of the structure. In this regard, the purpose of the work is to analyze the influence of heat parameters on the process of printing products from titanium alloy Ti64 using the electron-beam additive manufacturing method to identify regularities of structure formation and material properties at different process parameters. Results and discussion. The conducted researches have shown, that at various combinations of electron-beam 3D-printing process parameters, there is an insignificant change of macrostructure of the obtained Ti64 samples. However, due to different heat inputs and solidification rates, there are differences in microstructure and, therefore, in mechanical properties. The values of ultimate tensile strength and yield strength for obtained samples vary from 851 MPa and 796 MPa to 676 MPa and 574 MPa, respectively.