SBIR Phase I: Spray Forming Titanium Alloys Using the Cold Spray Process

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project is focused on improving the material properties of spray formed titanium shapes using the Cold Spray process. Development of new, low-cost methods for direct fabrication of spray formed titanium shapes is critical for many industries and in particular, for manufacturing parts of expensive metals and alloys such as titanium. Direct fabrication technologies would have tremendous commercial potential for many industries such as the aerospace and automotive because these technologies hold out the potential to quickly manufacture, and provide fast prototyping of complicated parts and to fabricate them with minimal material waste. Current methods of spray forming typically involve melting and solidification, which can cause high residual stresses, undesirable phases, poor microstructures, rough surface finishes, warpage, and other problems. This proposal presents a new technology that is under development that appears promising for directly fabricating solid, near-full-density, free-form shapes of many metals, at or near room temperature without melting and solidification. The objective of this Phase I study is to develop a low cost technology for spray forming titanium and Ti- 6Al-4V alloy and to perform post-test processing on thick-sprayed billets to improve the bulk material properties to near that of the wrought material.