Additive Manufacturing of Ti-6Al-4V with Carbon Nanotube Composite Material

Abstract This research is dedicated to investigating whether mechanical properties of Ti-6Al-4V (Titanium Grade 5) base material for additive manufacturing processes can be improved by addition of carbon nanotubes in the base material. Based on other research results with other materials, the assumption was made that reinforcing Ti-6Al-4V material with carbon nano-tubes should improve mechanical properties of the base material by 15–20 % in the additive manufacturing process. The research was divided in two steps, the first one was to investigate pure Ti-6Al-4V material and find optimal additive manufacturing processing parameters, which could maintain necessary quality standards and achieve material density levels higher than 98 % and tensile strength higher than 1000 MPa. The second part was to mix base powder with carbon nanotubes and using previously obtained processing parameters print test samples to investigate how a carbon nanotube concentration in a base powder would influence mechanical properties of the base material.