First principle calculations and low cost SLM processing of Ti–TiB composite materials

Abstract In order to obtain low cost, high-performance titanium matrix composite materials, first principle calculations and selective laser melting (SLM) experiments were conducted. Firstly, the properties of several typical reinforcements were compared by first principle calculations method, TiB was chosen as the ideal reinforcement. Secondly, the equilibrium lattice constants, mechanical properties and electronic structure of the titanium matrix and TiB reinforcement were calculated for estimating the properties of the composite materials. Calculation results show that both the elastic constants of Ti and TiB satisfy the mechanical stability conditions, and the bulk modulus, shear modulus, Young's modulus and hardness of TiB are all higher than those of Ti, which meets the reinforcing requirements. On this basis, SLM experiments were conducted to verify the calculations. Low cost, irregularly shaped hydrogenation-dehydrogenation titanium (HDH-Ti) and TiB2 powders were ball milled as the raw materials and printed. Microstructure and mechanical properties of the SLMed Ti–TiB composite materials with different addition content of TiB2 were analyzed, and the associated strengthening mechanism was discussed in detail.