Criticality of porosity defects on the fatigue performance of wire + arc additive manufactured titanium alloy

Abstract This study was aimed at investigating the effect of internal porosity on the fatigue strength of wire + arc additive manufactured titanium alloy (WAAM Ti-6Al-4V). Unlike similar titanium alloys built by the powder bed fusion processes, WAAM Ti-6Al-4V seldom contains gas pores. However, feedstock may get contaminated that may cause pores of considerable size in the built materials. Two types of specimens were tested: (1) control group without porosity referred to as reference specimens; (2) designed porosity group using contaminated wires to build the specimen gauge section, referred to as porosity specimens. Test results have shown that static strength of the two groups was comparable, but the elongation in porosity group was reduced by 60% and its fatigue strength was 33% lower than the control group. The stress intensity factor range of the crack initiating pore calculated by Murakami’s approach has provided good correlation with the fatigue life. The kink point on the data fitting curve corresponds well with the threshold value of the stress intensity factor range found in the literature. For predicting the fatigue limit, a modified Kitagawa-Takahashi diagram was proposed consisting of three regions depending on porosity size. Critical pore diameter was found to be about 100 µm.