CONTRAST OF REPAIR CAPABILITIES BETWEEN LASER METAL DEPOSITION AND TIG WELDING ON TI-6AL-4V

Ti-6Al-4V is a popular aerospace alloy employed in various aerospace structures and their critical components. Irrespective of cause, a defect of few cubic millimeters in volume could declare the disposal of a component making it a costly affair. In the current effort, a hybrid approach of additive and subtractive processes was adopted to repair material removal and plastic defoituation defects. Laser metal deposition and welding were the additive processes chosen for repair of the defects, and mini-tensile testing was employed as the characterization technique. A two-way statistical analysis was performed on the outputs obtained from the testing to establish the superiority in repair capability for each of the additive processes. The avg. yield strength obtained from laser repaired samples was found to be around 25% more than weld repaired specimens and avg. grain size for the laser repaired specimens was found to be approximately 1/3rd the size from weld repair.