Titanium alloys are advanced lightweight structural materials, indispensable for many critical applications in aeronautical, aerospace, automotive and biomedical engineering. However, enhancing their mechanical properties-particularly strength and wear resistance, remains a relentless pursuit, critical for engineering applications of Ti-based load-bearing components. In this work, we employed a laser powder bed fusion approach, a 3D printing technique, to fabricate crack-free Ti-6Al-4V (Ti64) titanium matrix composite (TMC) bulk through the incorporation of TiB 2 nanoceramics. The tensile strength of 3D printed TiB 2 /Ti64 TMC bulk is synergistically improved without sacrificing uniform elongation. Notably, the addition of 1 wt.% TiB 2 yields a tensile strength of approximately 1350 MPa, significantly surpassing that of TMCs reinforced with other types of reinforcements. In addition to promoting grain and α′ lath refinement via heterogeneous nucleation, the in-situ synthesized TiB whiskers also serve as the primary load-bearing phase, enabling efficient load transfer from the titanium matrix to the reinforcing phase and thereby enhancing strength. In addition, the presence of TiB whiskers effectively resists the surface deformation of Ti64-based TMCs under wear conditions, reducing the coefficient of friction and significantly improving wear resistance. The innovative strategy offers a fundamental guidance for the structural optimization design and advanced manufacturing of high-performance titanium alloy components.
Li et al. (Fri,) studied this question.