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The microstructures of Ti-6Al-4V following laser processing depend primarily on the phase transformation of β to α, but their development is constrained by the rapidly changing temperature in the small fusion zone. In-situ synchrotron X-ray diffraction was utilized to probe the rapid phase evolution in single melt tracks with high angular and temporal resolution. Both fully martensitic and mixed α+α′+β microstructures were confirmed by microscopy. Cooling rates were inferred from the lattice parameter history and complementary thermal simulation. It was found that the threshold cooling rate for fully martensitic transformation is in the range between 2900 and 6500°C/s. High-speed synchrotron X-ray diffraction during operando laser processing suggests a new threshold between martensitic and diffusional phase transformation in Ti-6Al-4V occurring at higher cooling rates than previously reported.

The laser melting process is accompanied by rapid evolution in temperature, phase, structure, and strain because of its high heating and cooling rates. In this study, the evolution of grains within a thin solid plate of Ni alloy 718 during laser processing was probed with in situ high-energy x-ray diffraction experiments. The high temporal and spatial resolution available in the measurement allowed us to study the rapid evolution of the melted region beneath the surface of the sample. The characterization of the evolution of secondary phases, i.e., Laves and carbide, was captured despite the weak diffracted peaks caused by small volume fractions. Thermal history was estimated based on changes in the lattice spacing from the thermal contraction upon cooling. The temporal variation in 2θ with azimuthal direction revealed the evolution in anisotropy of lattice spacing and thus of the mechanical state during laser processing.

The recent development of the Enriched Analytical Solution Method (EASM) for evaluating the spatio-temporal distribution of the temperature fields generated during the Laser Powder Bed Fusion (LPBF) Additive Manufacturing (AM) processes is provides an opportunity to study the sensitivity of the morphological parameters characterizing the associated melt-pools as a function of process parameters. The present work exercises the EASM for the case of a single-path trace over a 316L base plate under LPBF heat deposition conditions. To assist in the evaluation of solidification parameters, the spatial derivatives of the EASM are also derived. A process parameter subspace spanned by the scan velocity and the laser power is considered and the EASM is utilized for deriving a number of geometrical morphological characteristics of the melt pool as well as the quantities controlling the evolution of the solidification front. Finally, comparisons with initial experimental results obtained by in-situ high speed synchrotron X-ray imaging, capturing the spatio-temporal evolution of the melt pool profile are also presented.