Preparation of Spherical Porous and Spherical Ti6Al4V Powder by Copper-Assisted Spheroidization Method

The properties of impurity content, particle size distribution, and sphericity of the spherical Ti6Al4V powder are very important in the field of additive manufacturing. Currently, there are some shortcomings in the common method of preparing high-quality Ti6Al4V alloy spherical powders. A copper-assisted spheroidization method for preparation of spherical Ti6Al4V powder was developed in this study. The process involved induction melting to prepare a high brittleness intermetallic Cu-Ti-Al-V pre-alloy with low melting point. The solid-liquid interface dewetting method was then used to obtain the spherical Cu-Ti-Al-V particles, which were further processed using dealloying to obtain spherical porous Ti6Al4V powder. Finally, the spherical Ti6Al4V powder was obtained by undergoing combined sintering and deoxidizing steps. The study investigated the morphologies, structure, and composition of the preparation processes. The spherical Ti6Al4V powder prepared by this method possesses controllable composition and particle size distribution, along with low oxygen content, potentially meeting the requirements of additive manufacturing.