Study of Microstructure and Properties of 316L with Selective Laser Melting Based on Multivariate Interaction Influence

Abstract EN

The selective laser melting technique is widely used in aerospace and biomedical industries, and the performance of formed 316L parts is significantly subject to the forming angle.

As the selective laser melting 316L parts are constrained by multiple performance indexes, the study involves multivariate interaction influenced on the forming parameters such as the angle with the xz plane, the angle with the xy plane, laser power, scan speed, powder thickness, and hatching space on the indexes like tensile strength, density, and surface roughness with linear regression equations based on multiobjective optimization to obtain the best process parameters.

The study results of microstructure performance of the formed 316L parts show that the angle with the xz plane has significant effect on the experiment indexes, while the layer thickness has the greatest effect on the indexes.

After stretching, the molten pools are obviously elongated and the microstructure of the formed 316L parts is composed of equiaxed crystals and columnar crystals with a grain width of 0.28–0.4 nm.

The secondary growth of the dendrites is not obvious, and the crystallinity of the selective laser melting 316L parts is not as good as the standard parts, with the microstructure showing directional solidification due to grain refinement and microscopic distortion of crystals.

As the fracture has dimples, it is a ductile fracture and typical plastic fracture.

The hardness near the fracture is higher than that of the substrate, whilst the indexes regarding the selective laser melting parts are higher than the ASTM-A182 and ASTM-F3184-16 standards.

Since the theoretical model built in this study has less error, the findings have practical engineering application value.