Investigation of Mechanical Properties of Parts Fabricated with Gas- and Water-Atomized 304L Stainless Steel Powder in the Laser Powder Bed Fusion Process

The use of gas-atomized powder as the feedstock material for the laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) process is common in the additive manufacturing (AM) community. Although gas-atomization produces powder with high sphericity, its relatively expensive production cost is a downside for application in AM...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:JOM (1989) 2022-03, Vol.74 (3), p.1088-1095
Main Authors: Sehhat, M. Hossein, Sutton, Austin T., Hung, Chia-Hung, Newkirk, Joseph W., Leu, Ming C.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Additive manufacturing
Atomizing
Austenitic stainless steels
Chemistry/Food Science
Digital cameras
Earth Sciences
Elongation
Engineering
Environment
Geometry
Investigations
Lasers
Mechanical properties
Metal powders
Morphology
Particle size
Particle size distribution
Physics
Powder beds
Production costs
Raw materials
Scanning electron microscopy
Solid Freeform Fabrication 2021
Stainless steel
Tensile strength
Tensile tests
Water
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Summary:The use of gas-atomized powder as the feedstock material for the laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) process is common in the additive manufacturing (AM) community. Although gas-atomization produces powder with high sphericity, its relatively expensive production cost is a downside for application in AM processes. Water atomization of powder may overcome this limitation due to its low cost relative to the gas-atomization process. In this work, gas- and water-atomized 304L stainless steel powders were morphologically characterized through scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The water-atomized powder had a wider particle size distribution and exhibited less sphericity. Measuring powder flowability using the Revolution Powder Analyzer (RPA) indicated that the water-atomized powder had less flowability than the gas-atomized powder. Through examining the mechanical properties of LPBF fabricated parts using tensile tests, the gas-atomized powder had significantly higher yield tensile strength and elongation than the water-atomized powder; however, their ultimate tensile strengths were not significantly different.
ISSN:1047-4838
1543-1851
DOI:10.1007/s11837-021-05029-7