Research Information System
PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERS PART B-JOURNAL OF ENGINEERING MANUFACTURE, 2024 (SCI-Expanded)
Additive manufacturing (AM) methods, especially selective laser melting (SLM), have recently attracted attention because they enable the quick and easy production of complex parts that cannot be produced with traditional manufacturing methods. However, residual stresses in the fabricated components impact their mechanical characteristics and may necessitate additional heat treatments. In this study, SLM-produced Ti6Al4V parts were subjected to a stress relief treatment under argon gas at 790 degrees C for 2 h. The microstructure, microhardness and high-temperature tribological properties were examined comparatively with the traditional casting method. Dry sliding tribological experiments were carried out at different temperatures up to 600 degrees C to compare high-temperature performance. It has been determined that the microstructure of samples produced by casting and SLM comprised beta and alpha phases. The casting sample had 66.02% alpha grains, whereas the SLM sample had 59.02% alpha grains. The average microhardness in the SLM sample was marginally higher than that in the casting due to the formation of martensitic alpha. The results showed that wear rates increased with temperature for each sample. SLM samples exhibited slightly higher wear rates at each test temperature compared to the casting sample, which is attributed to the oxidative wear mechanism. The higher percentage of oxygen in the triboxide layers in the casting sample increased the wear resistance. When examining friction coefficients, an increase in average friction coefficients was observed at a test temperature of 300 degrees C, while a decrease was observed at a test temperature of 600 degrees C.