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Preparation of the month How to get the best results

Fascinating insights into the world of materialography await you every month in 2025! Find out more about our exciting preparations or get interesting tips and tricks from our experts. Look forward to our monthly highlights!

January 2025 Additive manufactured Ti64 sample

The Ti-6Al-4V (Ti64) alloy, also known as Titanium Grade 5, is one of the most used titanium alloys in additive manufacturing. It combines different properties like strength, lightness and corrosion resistance, making it attractive to a wide range of industries, including aerospace, automotive and medical. A major advantage of Ti64 additive manufacturing is its ability to produce customized implants for medical applications. Cutting the samples with a precision cutting machine such as the QCUT 200 A prevents the sample from overheating or being mechanically deformed during the cutting process. Mounting with an epoxy resin mounting material and using an infiltration device helps to fill all pores before grinding/polishing. Using the correct consumables during grinding/polishing can prevent smearing and makes the pore percentage measurement more accurate. This month you can find out all these important points in our preparation of the month.

Previous and future preparations

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February

Boundry between the Al-Si and gray cast iron after fine polishing step.

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March

Cross-sectional microstructure of the solder joint in a Ball Grid Array after fine polishing.

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April

Thermally sprayed Al2O3 layer with open pores.

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May

Microstructure of a laser weld seam on top of the copper pin in an electro motor after etching with waterbased solution of ferrinitrate 10%.

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June

Hardness mapping on an edge-hardened gear wheel, tested with HV 1.

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July

Microstructure of a cast aluminium electrolytically etched with Barker etchant.

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August

Dendritic structure of a CoCrMo cast alloy after fine polishing.

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September

Micro laser weld seam on a copper sheet after fine polishing.

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October

Microstructure of an edge-hardened gear with a ferrite-pearlite base structure, etched with 3% alcoholic nitric acid.

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November

Microstructure of an Al-Si alloy with primary silicon particles after fine polishing.

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December

Microstructure of a nodular cast iron (GJS) after etching with nitric acid with and without using a lambda plate.