Towards sustainable additive manufacturing: Enhanced productivity via numerical-experimental melt pool engineering in laser powder bed fusion of Ti-alloy

Laser Powder Bed Fusion (LPBF) offers a promising approach for creating metallic components with tailored properties. However, low production speed and high manufacturing costs remain challenges. Enhancing the building rate improves economic efficiency and reduces energy consumption, contributing to a greener environment. This study proposes a numerical-experimental approach to increase the LPBF build rate for Ti-5553 while maintaining part quality and performance. High-speed scanning parameters that produce parts with high density, low surface roughness, and sufficiently large melt pools were chosen from the optimized process parameters. A time-efficient and cost-effective simulation, developed by the authors, was used to predict the effects of process parameters on melt pool geometry and the possibility of lack-of-fusion defect formation due to increased hatch distance and layer thickness. This predictive analysis led to the selection of two parameter sets for fast and dense sample printing. The results indicate that increasing the hatch distance and the layer thickness enhances productivity by approximately 54 % and 104 %, respectively, compared to the original optimized parameters. The printed samples with fast-print parameters exhibit an excellent density (>99.98 %) and a favorable surface roughness (<17 μm). While these samples demonstrate a slightly finer grain size than the reference, their tensile strength, elongation, and hardness differ by less than 4 %, confirming negligible mechanical impact. These findings demonstrate a viable strategy for significantly improving LPBF efficiency while maintaining part quality.