Operando X-ray diffraction during laser 3D printing

Laser based additive manufacturing allows to build a designed shape layer-by-layer, offering versatility and flexibility to many metallurgical sectors. The fast cooling rates and repeated heat cycles depending on the laser and scanning parameters are not easily measurable with conventional methods. Thus, advanced predictive computational simulations, required to reduce trial and error lead time, are difficult to validate. A newly developed in operando X-ray diffraction device implemented at a synchrotron beamline, taking advantage of the high brilliance and the fast detectors available, brings the missing link with numerical methods. By performing operando experiments on Ti-6Al-4V with different printing parameters, the temporal evolution of the low and high temperature phases are followed, the heating and cooling rates are measured for the powder and the solid material; and the formation of residual stresses in the phase is demonstrated. Moreover it is shown that the parameter that has the largest influence on the evolving microstructure is the scanning strategy, introducing a size effect related to the scanning length.