Abstract
The current investigation shows the feasibility of 316L steel powder production via three different argon gas atomisation routes (closed coupled atomisation, free fall atomisation with and without hot gas), along with subsequent sample production by laser powder bed fusion (PBF-LB). Here, a mixture of pure Fe and atomised 316L steel powder is used for PBF-LB to induce a chemical composition gradient in the microstructure. Optical microscopy and μ-CT investigations proved that the samples processed by PBF-LB exhibit very little porosity. Combined EBSD-EDS measurements show the chemical composition gradient leading to the formation of a local fcc-structure. Upon heat treatment (1100 °C, 14 h), the chemical composition is homogeneous throughout the microstructure. A moderate decrease (1060 to 985 MPa) in the sample’s ultimate tensile strength (UTS) is observed after heat treatment. However, the total elongation of the as-built and heat-treated samples remains the same (≈22%). Similarly, a slight decrease in the hardness from 341 to 307 HV1 is observed upon heat treatment.
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