Vol.:(0123456789) 1 3 Metals and Materials International https://doi.org/10.1007/s12540-019-00439-4 Compressive Properties of Electron Beam Melted Ti–6Al–4V Porous Meshes with Diferent Struts Distributions Zhiwei Liu 1  · Mingjing Qi 1,2,3,4  · Xiaoyu Qin 1  · Dawei Huang 1  · Xiaoyong Zhang 1  · Xiaojun Yan 1,2,3,4 Received: 15 May 2019 / Accepted: 26 August 2019 © The Korean Institute of Metals and Materials 2019 Abstract Structural collapse caused by uneven stress distribution is one of the main failure modes of Electron Beam Melted (EBM) Ti–6Al–4V porous meshes for medical bone implantation. In this paper, two types of porous meshes with diferent struts distributions are fabricated by EBM methods and experimentally studied through uniaxial compression tests. The frst type (mesh 1) with simplifed struts distribution consists of horizontal, vertical and diagonal struts, which are connected by one node. The second type (mesh 2) has relatively complicated struts distribution with four structural nodes connected by verti- cal, horizontal and diagonal struts, and the inclined struts with an angle of 15° to the vertical or horizontal direction. The mechanical properties of solid Ti–6Al–4V alloy are also tested as reference for model-ftting analysis and the test results show that the EBM specimen can achieve comparable tensile strength (1186.5 MPa) and elastic modulus (106.4 GPa) as that of forging specimen. For the porous meshes, the deformation behavior of the struts along the load orientation is domi- nated by buckling mechanism and the deformation behavior of the struts inclined to the load orientation is governed by both buckling and bending mechanisms. The test results indicate that mesh 1 with relatively less inclined struts can achieve better compressive resistance than mesh 2 when taking the factor of mesh density into consideration. Such results indicate a simple yet meaningful view that struts distributions of the porous meshes should be designed and optimized based on their stress distribution conditions. Keywords Struts distribution · Porous meshes · Compressive properties · EBM · Ti–6Al–4V 1 Introduction Titanium and its alloy, such as Ti–6Al–4V, are regarded as one of the most promising biomaterials due to their outstanding biocompatibility, mechanical properties and corrosion resistance [1]. Over the past decades, the great breakthrough in additive manufacturing method, such as Electron Beam Melting (EBM), has provided a new class of medical implants by emulating the structural features of real bones through titanium alloy porous mesh structure [2–6]. These porous implants, which possess porosity and elastic modulus similar to biological bones, can achieve superior biocompatibility to alleviate the physical burden of patients [7–13]. Unlike dense structure, porous mesh structure sus- tains structural load via basic load-bearing struts and its structural strength strongly depends on the diameter and distribution form of the struts. Considering the load bear- ing capacity of a single strut is much lower than that of dense implants, it is essential to investigate the mechanical properties of the porous meshes to ensure the reliability of the porous implants [14–17]. In recent years, the mechanical properties of EBM porous meshes have been widely studied and these researches mainly focus on the infuence of manufacturing parameters [18–22], micro structure [23–28], cell topology [29–34], * Mingjing Qi qimingjing@buaa.edu.cn * Xiaojun Yan 405buaa@163.com 1 School of Energy and Power Engineering, Beihang University, XueYuan Road No.37, Haidian District, Beijing 100191, People’s Republic of China 2 Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Aero-Engine, Beijing 100191, People’s Republic of China 3 National Key Laboratory of Science and Technology on Aero-Engine Aero-Thermodynamics, Beijing 100191, People’s Republic of China 4 Beijing Key Laboratory of Aero-Engine Structure and Strength, Beijing 100191, People’s Republic of China