Additive manufacturing is increasingly considered for production of high quality, metallic, aerospace parts. Despite the high potential of this manufacturing process to reduce weight and lead time, the fundamental understanding of additive manufactured Ti–6Al–4V material is still at an early stage, especially in the area of fatigue and damage tolerance. This paper covers the effects of inherent surface roughness on the fatigue life. In the as built condition, metallic parts have a poor surface texture, which is generally removed in fatigue critical areas. It is shown that the fatigue properties of Ti–6Al–4V samples, produced by direct metal laser sintering and electron beam melting, are dominated by surface roughness effects. A simple model based on an equivalent initial flaw size is formulated.

Vibration-based energy harvesters with multi-layer piezoelectrets (ferroelectrets) are presented. Using a simple setup with nine layers and a seismic mass of 8 g, it is possible to generate a power up to 1.3 µW at 140 Hz with an input acceleration of 1g. With better coupling between seismic mass and piezoelectret, and thus reduced damping, the power output of a single-layer system is increased to 5 µW at 700 Hz. Simulations indicate that for such improved setups with 10-layer stacks, utilizing seismic masses of 80 g, power levels of 0.1 to 1 mW can be expected below 100 Hz.