Abstract:The crack initiation and early propagation are of great significance to the overall fatigue life of material. In order to investigate the anisotropic fracture behavior of laser metal deposited Ti-6Al-4V alloy (LMD Ti64) during the early stage, the four-point bending fatigue test was carried out on specimens of three different directions, as well as the forged specimens. The results indicate the anisotropic crack initiation and early propagation of LMD Ti64. The direction perpendicular to the deposition direction exhibits a better fatigue resistance than the other two. The crack initiation position and propagation path are dominated by the microstructure in the vicinity of U-notch. LMD Ti64 has a typical small crack effect, and the early crack propagation velocities in three directions are similar. Affected by the slip system of LMD Ti64, secondary cracks frequently occur, which are often found to have an angle of 60° to the main crack. The electron backscatter diffraction analysis indicates that LMD Ti64 has preferred orientations, i.e., strong //Z texture and //Z texture. Their crystallographic orientation will change as the direction of columnar β grains turns over, resulting in the fatigue anisotropy of LMD Ti64 in crack initiation and early crack propagation process.