Efficient polishing of additive manufactured titanium alloys

In this paper, a comparison of two surface polishing techniques suitable for additive manufactured titanium alloy parts is presented. The symmetrically branched parts designed by the Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) for high fatigue resistance under cyclical loading were polished using plasma electrolytic polishing (PEP) and powder blasting combined with PEP. Surface roughness data and micrographs were obtained before and after polishing. The polished parts were tested under cyclical tension loading in order to compare the influence of two surface treatments on fatigue resistance. The tension loading results obtained on the analysed parts were compared to those obtained on parts loaded in as-built condition.