The effect of shot peening on the corrosion behaviour of Ti-6Al-4V alloy made by DMLS

Additive Manufacturing processes are being used increasingly in the scope of medicine and dentistry. As indicated by literature data, the durability and quality of medical implants is decisively influenced by surface modification. Insufficient quality of surface finishing leads, among others, to reduced service life of applied implants and to increased number of necessary revision surgeries. Furthermore, various types of finishing processes e.g. cleaning, shot peening or abrasive techniques are suggested by the manufacturers of products made by means of DMLS processes. Due to this fact, the analysis of proper formation of the surface layer of titanium products made by means of the method consisting in the direct laser sintering of metal powders (DMLS) was the subject matter of our research. Therefore, Ti-6Al-4V titanium alloy has been used for tests. The samples have been produced by means of EOSINT M280 system dedicated for laser sintering of metal powders. The surfaces of prepared samples have been subjected to shot peening process at three different values of working pressure (0.2, 0.3 and 0.4 MPa) by means of three different working media i.e. CrNi steel shot, crushed nut shells and ceramic balls. The characteristics of the materials used for shot peening process have been determined by means of Zeiss Ultra Plus scanning electron microscope. The samples have been subjected to profilometric measurements on Bruker Contour GT optical profilometer and the corrosion behaviour of Ti-6Al-4V titanium alloy in Ringer solution has been determined in electrode impedance spectroscopy (EIS) measurements by means of Atlas 0531 set dedicated for corrosion testing. The overall results of all tests indicate to favourable influence of the shot peening process on the corrosion behaviour of titanium alloy.