Spherical Pores as ‘Microstructural Informants’: Understanding Compositional, Thermal, and Mechanical Gyrations in Additively Manufactured Ti-6Al-4V

Abstract Detailed analysis of defects such as spherical porosity can act as informants, providing some information regarding the complex and often hidden physics associated with additive manufacturing. Variation in the presence and nature of these defects can shed new insights into the AM process. In this paper, the compositional, crystallographic, microstructural, and morphological characteristics surrounding gas pores in Electron Beam Melted Ti-6Al-4V have been assessed and correlated with different scanning strategies (raster and two point melting ones, Dehoff and random). The large spherical pores (>25μm), exclusively present in raster scan, exhibit perturbations normal to the vertical sidewalls of the pores that are likely the result of elastic instabilities resulting from chemical and crystallographic variations and initiated by vertical compression caused by thermal stresses related to the cyclic process – effectively a form of microbuckling. Electron backscatter diffraction maps support the theory that these perturbations occur at elevated temperatures and prior to the final solid-solid phase transformation.