Improving Surface Quality of Laser Powder Bed Fusion Manufactured Metal Parts by Vibratory Polishing for Sustainable Production

Abstract

AbstractAdditive manufacturing (AM) technology, which has developed recently, is used in a wide range of application areas such as from the medical sector to aerospace and automotive industries. Laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) is one of the metal AM techniques which provide an opportunity to generate complex geometries. Although LPBF has been started to be used for final geometries of the functional products, surface quality is still a great concern. Undesired surface features may cause the unexpected end of life of the functional parts by friction, wear, corrosion and fatigue fractures, as a result, high energy and material consumption and poor sustainability. Therefore, to achieve desired surface features of metal AM parts it is important to define suitable surface post-process. In this study, it was aimed to define the effect of vibratory polishing surface post process on the surface quality of the LPBF manufactured AlSi10Mg parts. Ceramic and polymer abrasive media were used during the process. Surface roughness values were measured at ten-minute intervals by stopping the process. The polishing process was applied for 60 min in total. At the end of this period arithmetic mean surface roughness of the sample polished by ceramic media was decreased by 62.14% while this ratio was 47.92% with polymer media. This study revealed that vibratory polishing was a very effective method for ensuring the surface integrity of metal AM parts and increasing the surface quality. By reducing the roughness and increasing the surface quality, it will reduce the energy loss due to friction in tribological systems and support sustainability. The studies are going on with different metal AM parts and different geometries.KeywordsAdditive manufacturingSustainabilityPost-processingVibratory finishingSurface quality