Heat treatment enhancing the compressive fatigue properties of open-cellular Ti-6Al-4V alloy prototypes fabricated by electron beam melting

In this work, we report the effect of annealing in α+β phase field on the fatigue properties of Ti-6Al-4V alloy meshes fabricated by electron beam melting. The results show that annealing at high temperature near the phase boundary enhances the ductility of the brittle mesh struts due to the formation of coarse α lamellas with a large thickness/length ratio. Accordingly, the fatigue endurance ratio of the studied meshes increases to up to ∼0.6, which is much superior to that of the as-fabricated counterparts and comparable to those of dense materials.