494 Fatigue performance of powder bed fused Ti-6Al-4V component with integrated chemically etched capillary for structural health monitoring application

Fatigue performance of additively manufactured (AM) components is still uncertain and inconsistent. Structural health monitoring (SHM) systems offer a solution to continuously monitor the structural integrity of a structure. The effective Structural Health Monitoring (eSHM) system is the first SHM principle developed with the principal purpose to monitor AM components. The eSHM principle exploits the design freedom offered by AM to integrate a capillary inside the component. The capillary is put under low vacuum and the pressure is monitored during the operation of the component. As-built AM surfaces report elevated surface roughness and are one of the principle causes of premature fatigue initiation and fatigue failure. The current study will investigate the effect of a chemical etching (CE) post-process on the capillary surface and evaluate its effect on the fatigue performance.