Experimental investigations on surface morphology and metallurgical studies of additive manufactured stainless steel features finished by electrolytic ionic interactions

Abstract

The laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) technique is used for fabricating complex features compared to traditional manufacturing processes. Besides several advantages, LPBF features have high surface roughness, which necessitates finishing processes. The electrochemical finishing process is widely used for reducing surface roughness using electrolytic ionic interactions. This reduction can be affected by several parameters in the experimental work. However, the most significant parameters (voltage, finishing time, and temperature) were chosen for the one-factor-at-a-time technique and optimized by central composite rotatable design (CCRD) to investigate the surface roughness reduction. The surface roughness model was validated by performing a confirmation test at optimized process parameters and achieved the optimal Ra of 0.245 µm from the initial Ra of 11.763 µm.