Acta Metallurgica Sinica (English Letters) ›› 2020, Vol. 33 ›› Issue (4): 539-550.DOI: 10.1007/s40195-019-00983-3

• Orginal Article • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Effect of Build Direction on Fatigue Performance of L-PBF 316L Stainless Steel

Chenfan Yu1, Yuan Zhong2, Peng Zhang3, Zhenjun Zhang3, Congcong Zhao1, Zhefeng Zhang3, Zhijian Shen1,2, Wei Liu1()   

  1. 1 State Key Laboratory of New Ceramic and Fine Processing, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China
    2 Department of Materials and Environmental Chemistry, Arrhenius Laboratory, Stockholm University, 106 91, Stockholm, Sweden
    3 Laboratory of Fatigue and Fracture for Materials, Institute of Metal Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang, 110016, China
  • Received:2019-05-11 Revised:2019-08-10 Online:2020-04-10 Published:2020-04-15
  • Contact: Wei Liu Liuw_tsinghua@163.com

Abstract:

The microstructure and fatigue and tensile properties of 316L stainless steel fabricated via laser powder bed fusion (L-PBF) were investigated. Two 316L stainless steel specimens with different loading directions which are either perpendicular to or parallel to building direction were prepared by L-PBF process. The results of X-ray diffraction tomography showed that there was no significant difference in morphology and size/distribution of the defects in the HB and VB samples. Since long axis of columnar grains is generally parallel to the build direction, the fatigue crack encounters more grain boundaries in VB samples under cyclic loading, which led to enhanced fatigue resistance of VB samples compared with HB sample. In contrast to HB sample, the VB sample has a higher fatigue strength due to a higher resistance to localized plastic deformation under cyclic loading. The differences in fatigue properties of L-PBF 316L SS with different build directions were predominantly controlled by solidification microstructures.

Key words: Austenitic stainless steel, Laser powder bed fusion, Tensile properties, Fatigue strength