Increasing the Productivity of Laser Powder Bed Fusion for Stainless Steel 316L through Increased Layer Thickness
Journal article, 2021

Additive manufacturing (AM) is able to generate parts of a quality comparable to those produced through conventional manufacturing, but most of the AM processes are associated with low build speeds, which reduce the overall productivity. This paper evaluates how increasing the powder layer thickness from 20 µm to 80 µm affects the build speed, microstructure and mechanical properties of stainless steel 316L parts that are produced using laser powder bed fusion. A detailed microstructure characterization was performed using scanning electron microscopy, electron backscatter diffraction, and x-ray powder diffraction in conjunction with tensile testing. The results suggest that parts can be fabricated four times faster with tensile strengths comparable to those obtained using standard process parameters. In either case, nominal relative density of > 99.9% is obtained but with the 80 µm layer thickness presenting some lack of fusion defects, which resulted in a reduced elongation to fracture. Still, acceptable yield strength and ultimate tensile strength values of 464 MPa and 605 MPa were obtained, and the average elongation to fracture was 44%, indicating that desirable properties can be achieved.

laser powder bed fusion

productivity

Additive manufacturing

tensile properties

EBSD

stainless steel

Author

Alexander Leicht

Chalmers, Industrial and Materials Science, Materials and manufacture

Marie Fischer

Chalmers, Industrial and Materials Science, Materials and manufacture

Uta Klement

Chalmers, Industrial and Materials Science, Materials and manufacture

Lars Nyborg

Chalmers, Industrial and Materials Science, Materials and manufacture

Eduard Hryha

Chalmers, Industrial and Materials Science, Materials and manufacture

Journal of Materials Engineering and Performance

1059-9495 (ISSN) 1544-1024 (eISSN)

Vol. 30 1 575-584

Subject Categories

Metallurgy and Metallic Materials

Areas of Advance

Materials Science

DOI

10.1007/s11665-020-05334-3

More information

Latest update

2/1/2021 2