Direct Digital Fabrication and Characterization of New Low Cost Titanium Alloys

The objective is to develop and demonstrate new high performance aerospace alloys suitable for direct digital manufacturing (DDM). The shift from conventional titanium ingot metallurgy to DDM manufacturing provides the capability to develop alloy compositions which exhibit enhanced exemplary properties and at significantly lower cost in near/net shapes. The Phase I demonstrated titanium alloys with tensile strengths 2242% higher than standard Ti 6Al-4V with higher modulus while maintaining high ductility. It was demonstrated that plasma transferred arc (PTA) DDM could use sponge as a feed and produce alloys that are not possible by ingot metallurgy processing at a cost of only 2 to 3 times the cost of sponge. The Phase II proposes to optimize alloy compositions, demonstrate reproducibility in properties and demonstrate producing architectures containing sweeps, curvatures and various angles that translates into producing prototypes which will then be translated to actual parts in coordination with the Navy and OEMs producing DoD weaponary.