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Ti-48Al-2Nb-2Cr is a challenging and difficult-to-cut titanium aluminide (TiAl) alloy with several manufacturing issues because of the high sensitivity to crack formation and oxygen picking up. Electron beam powder bed fusion (EB-PBF) made feasible TiAl near net shape components, but the surfaces are particularly rough and present complex surface topographies. In this present investigation, experimental analysis and optimization are proposed for electro-chemical machining (ECM) on as-built Ti-48Al-2Nb-2Cr surfaces manufactured using EB-PBF. Experimental runs are performed under pulsed machining conditions and varying specific process metrics to understand the machining effects on the process efficiency and removal phenomena. In particular, the morphology and isotropy of the surface are studied before and after the machining by scanning electron and confocal microscopies. The results establish the optimal machining conditions and a range for the active machining time that produce, compared to the as-built surface, an extremely smooth and isotropy surface without any detrimental effect on the surface integrity and microstructure.

Electron beam melting (EBM) made feasible γ-titanium aluminide (TiAl) alloys. However, the surface roughness resulting from EBM is poor, and the high mechanical properties make γ-TiAl difficult to be machined. Electro-Chemical Machining (ECM) is gaining interest as a finishing process to achieve low surface roughness. Based on the anodic dissolution mechanism, ECM realises a contactless material removal and results particularly suitable for difficult-to-cut materials. The paper investigates the use of ECM for the finishing of Ti-48Al-2Nb-2Cr, a γ-TiAl alloy made by EBM. The effects of current, voltage, feed rate and duty ratio have been accounted for under pulsed machining conditions.

Electro-chemical machining (ECM) is a nonconventional machining process based on the anodic dissolution of the workpiece. The peculiar features of this process make it suitable for application in the aerospace, automotive, or medical fields where laser-based powder bed fusion (L-PBF) is consolidating as a manufacturing solution for high-performance components. The roughness of as-built L-PBF parts often requires surface finishing before usage in order to enable a correct operation as well as to prevent early fatigue failure. The viability of ECM on L-PBF components is still scarcely investigated in the literature. In this article, the process was applied to AlSi10Mg parts produced by L-PBF. An experimental plan was designed to select the process parameters and to study their effect on the surface roughness and morphology. Process variables including feed rate, time, voltage, and water pressure were investigated. As a result, it was observed that the ECM performance was different for parts produced by traditional processes or by L-PBF, even for comparable composition. Owing to the presence of satellite particles on L-PBF surfaces, ECM was only effective in the pulsed mode.

Multi Jet Fusion (MJF) is an emerging additive manufacturing (AM) technique that enables the production of prototypes and functional parts starting from a thermoplastic-based powder, mainly polyamide 12 (PA12). Layer upon layer, the polymeric particles are selectively impregnated with two different inks and then fused and consolidated by an infrared (IR) lamp. Much faster than other AM techniques for polymers, MJF has shown exciting potentialities. However, little is known about the consolidation mechanisms acting in MJF and about the effect on the properties of the finished parts of the quality of the materials, powder and inks, and of the printing conditions. The present contribution investigates these issues. The study also compares virgin PA12 powder with pure PA12, recycled PA12 for MJF and PA12 for in selective laser sintering (SLS). The powders showed slight differences. The two inks have the same composition, except for the presence of graphitic carbon. Tensile tests showed that the printed parts are isotropic. However, the deformation at break is affected by building direction of the sample. Occasionally, poor inter-layer adhesion is observed and the tensile strength and the deformation at break collapse. Printed tensile specimens are found to be representative of the material behaviour of a printed component, apart from the deformation at break which is systematically overestimated.

In comparison with Ti-6Al-4V, which is the most common titanium alloy, Ti-6Al-2Sn-4Zr-2Mo (Ti6242) is a crucial structural material with a maximum service temperature of 540 °C. One of the key applications of this alloy is in the hot sections of power generation systems, such as impeller. Because of its higher thermal resistance, the processability of this alloy through conventional manufacturing processes is challenging. For this reason, new manufacturing processes such as Additive Manufacturing (AM) could attract attention in producing components made of this alloy. Among the AM processes, laser powder bed fusion suffers from low productivity and high residual stresses, especially in bulk components. Hence, this work aims to investigate the processability of the Ti6242 complex geometry components through the Electron beam powder bed fusion (EB-PBF) process. A design of experiments approach is adopted to identify the best hatching conditions that produce a fully dense material. The contour strategy is also optimised to obtain the lowest surface roughness. The influence of processing conditions on the final density, microstructure and defect content is investigated using different techniques, including X-Ray computer tomography (CT) analysis. With this scope, simple squared parallelepiped samples are produced. Then, selected optimum process conditions are adapted to produce more complex geometries, such as cylindrical tensile specimens and an impeller, which requires a dynamical control of the melt pool according to the section to be melted. The density and the accuracy of the impeller are evaluated using X-Ray computer tomography scanning.