Selective laser melting of NiTi alloy with superior tensile property and shape memory effect

It is a challenge to develop complex-shaped NiTi shape memory alloy parts by traditional processing methods, due to the poor machinability of NiTi alloy. It is reported that selective laser melting (SLM) of additive manufacturing could overcome this problem. However, the reported SLM-produced NiTi exhibits poor tensile ductility due to the inner defects and adverse unidirectional columnar grains from SLM process. In this work, the defect-less SLM-NiTi with nondirective columnar grains was fabricated by optimizing the intraformational laser scanning length and interformational laser scanning direction. The obtained lath-shaped SLM-NiTi sample exhibits tensile strain of 15.6%, more than twice of the reported maximum result (?7%). Besides, the SLM-NiTi part with complex geometry displays a shape memory recovery of 99% under compressive deformation of 50%.