Abstract
Electron beam powder bed fusion (E-PBF) is a well-known additive manufacturing process. Components are realized based on layer-by-layer melting of metal powder. Due to the high degree of design freedom, additive manufacturing came into focus of tooling industry, especially for tools with sophisticated internal cooling channels. The present work focuses on the relationships between processing, microstructure evolution, chemical composition and mechanical properties of a high alloyed tool steel AISI H13 (1.2344, X40CrMoV5-1) processed by E-PBF. The specimens are free of cracks, however, lack of fusion defects are found upon use of non-optimized parameters finally affecting the mechanical properties detrimentally. Specimens built based on suitable parameters show a relatively fine grained bainitic/martensitic microstructure, finally resulting in a high ultimate strength and an even slightly higher failure strain compared to conventionally processed and heat treated AISI H13.
Highlights
Electron beam powder bed fusion (E-PBF), known as Electron Beam Melting (EBM), is a powder bed-based layerby-layer fabrication process being able to robustly produce metallic parts with a high density well above 99.5% showing mechanical properties similar to conventionally processed materials (Ref [1,2,3])
AISI H13 specimens were processed by electron beam powder bed fusion
The main conclusions can be drawn as follows: (a) High relative densities without traces of large defects are found in all conditions built with high volume energies, i.e., 36 J/mm3 and 44 J/mm3, whereas the condition built with the lowest volume energy, i.e., 32 J/mm3, revealed a high density of lack of fusion defects
Summary
Electron beam powder bed fusion (E-PBF), known as Electron Beam Melting (EBM), is a powder bed-based layerby-layer fabrication process being able to robustly produce metallic parts with a high density well above 99.5% showing mechanical properties similar to conventionally processed materials (Ref [1,2,3]). It is well-known that microstructure evolution in E-PBF is highly influenced by the volume energy (Ref [1, 3]). The majority of studies on E-PBF focused on titanium- and nickel-based alloys, respectively, which are of significant interest for aerospace and
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