Investigation of the microstructure and surface morphology of a Ti6Al4V plate fabricated by vacuum selective laser melting

As an additive manufacturing technology, the selective laser melting (SLM) process is useful to directly form complicated shapes. The SLM process in a vacuum has been used to fabricate three-dimensional Ti6Al4V (Ti64) plates because this method can control the phase transformation. To investigate the laser melting and solidification dynamics, the formation of a Ti64 plate by SLM in a vacuum was captured by a high-speed video camera. Due to the effects of temperature and scanning speed on the phase transformation, the crystal orientation was evaluated with X-ray diffraction. A phase transformation of the crystal orientation occurred as the baseplate temperature was heated up from 50 to 150 °C.