Microstructure of a Tia??50??wt% Ta alloy produced via laser powder bed fusion

摘要： Ti–Ta alloys have been widely studied for biomedical applications due to their high biocompatibility and corrosion resistance. In this work, nearly fully dense and in situ alloyed Ti–50 wt% Ta samples were fabricated by the laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) of mechanically mixed powders. With increased exposure time, and thereby increased laser energy density, insoluble Ta particles were almost dissolved, and a Ti–50 wt% Ta alloy was formed. Cellular and dendritic structures were formed due to constitutional undercooling, which was caused by the high cooling rate of LPBF process. Both retained β phases and α″ phases were observed in the LPBFed Ti–50 wt% Ta alloy. The α″ phase was found at the boundary of the cellular structures, where the tantalum content was not high enough to suppress the bcc lattice transition completely but could suppress the β phase → α′ phase transition.