Prediction of Solid-State Phase Transformations for the Ti-6Al-4V Alloy

Ti-6Al-4V alloy is the most relevant titanium alloy, finding applications in multiple high-value industries. The production of Ti-6Al-4V components by selective laser melting is particularly challenging, due to the highly localized heat input and large temperature gradients, which affect the material’s microstructure and final mechanical properties. The main objective of this work is to develop a metallurgical framework able to describe the solid-state phase transformations of Ti-6Al-4V during processing. The predicted volume fraction of each solid phase is used to estimate strains induced by the thermal cycle and the phase transformations independently. The presented numerical model considers a single finite element subjected to heat fluxes that impose two sequential heating/cooling cycles, replicating the laser movement. The numerical results emphasize the importance of predicting phase volume fraction fields for an accurate estimation of the material’s volume change. In fact, changing the heating/cooling rates resulted in completely different final microstructures and a 0.5% difference on the material’s volume change relative to its initial volume, which would correspond to a stress increment of approximately 200 MPa if the linear elastic material was fully constrained.