Controlled Porosity Structures in Aluminum and Titanium Alloys by Selective Laser Melting

Abstract

Stochastic and non-stochastic porous structures, are used in a variety of applications such as biomedical implants, heat exchangers mass and gas separation, water purification, energy conversion and storage due to their interesting combinations of physical and mechanical properties, such as high stiffness in conjunction with very low specific weight or high gas permeability combined with high thermal conductivity. Among the technologies for the production of these porous structures, the additive manufacturing (AM) processes, such as the powder bed based selective laser melting (SLM), are of particular interest. In order to obtain this kind of structures with SLM, it is important to know the relationship between process parameters and material employed. A series of experiments were carried out to analyze the influence of the main SLM process parameters on the width and continuity of manufacture of non-stochastic porous structures and to manufacture stochastic porous structures through the scanning strategy.