Microstructure effect on sliding wear of 316L stainless steel selectively laser melted

Abstract

Due to varying thermal cycles, the resulting microstructure of metal additive manufacturing differs from the conventionally processed counterpart alloys. Since the mechanical properties depend on the microstructure, the wear resistance of components manufactured by laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) is determined by the processing parameters. This work focuses on microhardness and sliding wear of 316L stainless steel, evaluated nanoindentation and pin-on-disc, respectively, analysed through optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and glow discharge emission spectrometry (GDOES). The results show that the LPBF-processed specimens have about 40% higher microhardness and ca. 30% lower wear rate than the wrought counterpart. The enhanced sliding wear resistance is associated with the higher density of dislocations at the cellular subgrain boundaries.