Laser Metal Deposition Repair Applications for Ti-6Al-4V Alloy

Laser metal deposition is an additive manufacturing process, which is used to produce functional metal parts or repair existing parts. This paper focuses on deposition of Ti-6Al-4V material for remanufacturing of existing Ti-6Al-4V components. Optimization of laser metal deposition process parameters is significant in achieving good metallurgical and mechanical properties such as fine grain structure and bonding strength for aerospace applications. Taguchi's L9 orthogonal array method has been adopted to optimize the laser power, powder feed rate and scan speed. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) is used to study the effect of process parameters on the deposit and verification trial experiments were conducted to ascertain the optimum process parameters performance. Residual stress measurement results revealed that the residual stress is compressive and significantly higher in optimized test specimen with good bonding strength. The optimized results shown that enhanced properties in refurbishment of aero engine parts using Ti-6Al-4V powder material.