Mechanical properties of additively manufactured builds from different 316L steel powders

Abstract

In the present study, additively-manufactured (AM) specimens from 316L steel were investigated. The AM method used was Direct Energy Deposition (DED) where powder is fed continuously to a melt pool and is completely melted by high power laser. The melt pool rapidly solidifies on and beneath the substrate surface. To protect it from oxidation during deposition, argon is used as a shielding gas and is blown continuously to the melt pool. The DED process generates structures with minimum pores. 316L austenitic stainless steel was chosen for the experiments in order to avoid dealing with complex phase transformations during deposition. Four 316L powders supplied by four different companies were used and differences in the mechanical properties of the builds were examined. The process parameters were the same for each powder. There a number of studies on Selective Laser Melting (SLM) which explore the effects of powder properties on final mechanical properties of the builds. The underlying idea is to select a powder from a particular supplier to meet the customer required properties.