Ti-64 microstructure quantification

Prior work at Manchester and Cranfield has identified some of the critical, alloy dependent, microstructural issues that arise when conventional alloys are used for large scale AM. These include coarse directional grain structures with pronounced textures, microsegregation, and microstructure banding in the heat affected zone. The evolution of microstructure during AM is highly complex since it involves both the liquid-solid transition (during deposition) and solid-state thermal cycling as each layer is heat treated multiple times by subsequent depositions.