Abstract
This study investigates the effects of build orientations, heat treatment, and mechanical machining (as processing and post-processing factors) on the microstructure, quasi-static mechanical properties, strain hardening, notch toughness, and residual stress of additive manufactured 13Cr10Ni1·7Mo2Al0·4Mn0·4Si maraging stainless steel, known commercially as CX. The material investigated in this research was processed using the laser powder bed fusion (L-PBF) method as the additive manufacturing process. The results show that stainless steel CX had an anisotropic behavior under quasi-static tensile loads in its as-built condition. However, heat treatment significantly increased the strength of the material and eliminated the anisotropy in the strength levels. In addition, building orientation did not significantly affect the microstructure, hardness, and notch toughness. Further, retained austenite proved to have a role in determining the ductility and strain hardening of CX. Finally, the heat treatment utilized in this study proved to be effective in improving the mechanical properties employing shorter times and lower temperatures compared to the treatments used in other studies from the literature.
Highlights
Additive manufacturing (AM) of metals expands its influence on industry and construction by providing these application areas with new design and material modification possibilities
Densities of the manufactured samples were measured by the Archimedes method using acetone as the immersion medium to increase the accuracy of the measurements
These isolated voids are relatively harmless to the mechanical properties of AM metals as long as, in most cases, their relative density is higher than 99%, and no porosity clustering is present throughout the microstruc ture [19,24,26]
Summary
Additive manufacturing (AM) of metals expands its influence on industry and construction by providing these application areas with new design and material modification possibilities. As a pre cipitation hardening (PH) steel, CX seems to be a good candidate and economical choice to replace more expensive alloys, e.g., Ti–6Al–4V, for heavy-duty applications that require a combination of high strength and corrosion resistance [2,3,4]. This metal can be used in the aerospace, marine, and automobile industries, die production, petrochemical plants, nuclear reactors, and energy sections due to its excellent corro sion resistance and enhanced mechanical properties [1,5]
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