Research performed at MTM on the cover page of Advanced Engineering Materials (June 2012)

Cover page of Advanced Engineering Materials (June 2012)

Selective Laser Melting (SLM) is a direct additive manufacturing (AM) technique that can be used to produce micro-porous structures with global morphological properties that are highly controlled through robust computer design. Despite these advantages, some AM techniques still hold several functional constraints, resulting from present technical device limits and consequently the inability to control surface morphology at a microscale level. In MTM, a novel protocol for surface modification of 3D titanium alloy-based open porous structures has been developed, applying a combination of chemical etching (CHE) and electrochemical polishing (ECP) using hydrofluoric acid-based solutions. This protocol achieves a significant and controllable roughness reduction and homogenisation of 3D AM Ti6Al4V open porous structures. Further details can be found in the article by G. Pyka et.al. on page 363. This work has been rewarded by being published on the cover page of the June edition of the journal.

Article info:

Pyka, G., Burakowski, A., Kerckhofs, G., Moesen, M., Van Bael, S., Schrooten, J. and Wevers, M. (2012), Surface Modification of Ti6Al4V Open Porous Structures Produced by Additive Manufacturing. Adv. Eng. Mater., 14: 363–370. doi: 10.1002/adem.201100344

Abstract

Additive manufacturing techniques can be used to produce micro-porous structures with global morphological properties that are highly controlled through robust computer design. Despite these advantages, most of these techniques still hold several functional constraints, resulting from present technical device limits and consequently the inability to control surface morphology at a microscale level. In this study, a novel protocol for surface modification of 3D titanium alloy-based open porous structures is developed, which applies a combination of chemical etching (CHE) and electrochemical polishing (ECP) using HF-based solutions. This protocol achieves significant and controllable roughness reduction of additive manufactured 3D Ti6Al4V open porous structures. Chemical etching mainly removes the attached powder grains, while ECP further decreases the roughness. In this way the heterogeneity of the strut surface roughness throughout the full 3D structure is effectively removed.