Titanium alloy materials are characterized by light weight, high strength, low elasticity, high temperature and corrosion resistance, and are mainly used in aerospace and cutting-edge military industries. At present, with the maturity of the technology, titanium alloy as an increasingly common metal material has begun to be widely used in the field of ships, chemical equipment, marine, sports equipment, medical implants, automobiles, motorcycles, bicycles, construction, daily necessities and so on.
3D printing materials are mainly divided into photosensitive resin materials, engineering plastic materials, metal materials, ceramic materials, biological materials, rubber materials, graphene materials and other major categories. At this stage, China's 3D printing is still dominated by non-metallic materials, non-metallic materials, including engineering plastics, photosensitive resins, ceramic materials and cell biological raw materials. Non-metallic and metal materials roughly form a 6:4 pattern, and the domestic production enterprises in the 3D printing raw materials are fewer, especially in metal materials, still rely on imports.
Compared with other materials, titanium alloy has excellent comprehensive properties such as high specific strength, good high temperature mechanical properties and creep resistance, and good corrosion resistance, and is considered to be the most suitable metal material for preparation into powder. Material properties, powder quality is one of the key factors affecting the quality of the structure and performance of the final printed parts and the use of maturity, if the powder or process parameters are not selected properly, the molding parts are prone to spheroidization, cracks, pores and warping deformation and other defects, seriously affecting its molding accuracy and mechanical properties. In general, the better the quality of the powder, the higher the consistency, the smaller the fluctuation, the smaller the particle size, the denser the printed product, the better the mechanical properties.
A variety of different metals can be used in the form of powder to manufacture parts through 3D printing, the current market common metal 3D printing materials are mainly concentrated in the field of titanium alloys, aluminum alloys and stainless steel, of which titanium alloys have the fastest development and the highest share.
