Experimental investigation of laser metal deposited icosahedral Al-Cu-Fe coatings on grade five titanium alloy

Laser Additive Manufacturing is relatively new in the manufacturing industry. This paper focuses on the effect of hybrid coatings of Al-Cu-Fe on a grade five titanium alloy (Ti6Al4V) using laser metal deposition (LMD) process at different laser power and scanning speeds. Icosahedral Al-Cu-Fe as quasicrystals are a relatively new class of materials which exhibit unusual atomic structure and useful physical and chemical properties. Ti6Al4V/Al-Cu-Fe composite were analysed using Optical microscopy, Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) with energy dispersive microscopy (EDS), indentation testing, X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), corrosion and wear testing. deposit width and height, heat affected zone (HAZ) height), dilution rate, aspect ratio and powder efficiency of each sample remarkably increased with increasing laser power due to the laser-material interaction. It was observed that there are higher number of aluminium and titanium presented in the formation of the composite. The indentation testing reveals that for both scanning speed of 0.8m/min and 1m/min, the mean hardness value decreases with increasing laser power. It was found that due to dilution effect, a part of Ti entered into molten pool from the substrate. The results indicate that Ti, Al₃Ti, Ti₃Al, CuTi₂ can be produced through the in situ metallurgical reactions during the LMD process.