Chemical composition analysis for laser solid forming of titanium alloys from blended elemental powders

Laser solid forming (LSF) from blended elemental powders is an advanced technique to investigate new alloy systems and to create innovative materials. Accurate composition control is critical for the applications of this technique. In this letter, the composition analysis is performed on LSF titanium alloys from blended Ti, A1, and V powders. It is found that the composition of as-deposited sample can be controlled by keeping the identity of the divergence angle of each elemental powder stream. Based on the consistency condition for divergence angles of different elemental powder streams, the matching relation among the Ti, A1, and V powder characteristics (particle size and density) can be obtained, which ensures the consistency in composition between the laser deposits and the blended elemental powders under different laser processing parameters.