Metal Additive Manufacturing Conference - MAMC 2020

The influence of additive manufacturing in various industries like automotive, aerospace, medicine and aviation is increasing constantly. Especially steel grades gain a lot of attention at this new and fast developing market. However, the weldability of a material defines and limits the processability for the Laser-Powder-Bed fusion technique. Therefore, case hardening steels, characterized by a low carbon content, like the Böhler E185 AMPO, attract much interest, due to their easy printability without powder bed-preheating. This material is ready to use in the as-built condition with a well balanced property relationship of strength, ductility and impact toughness. Furthermore, heat- and additional surface treatments improve the hardness and wear resistance. These unique characteristics open the fields for many light weight constructions, several plastic mould-, as well as transmission-, and engineering- applications. In this study, the technological and mechanical properties of the Böhler E185 AMPO are analyzed in detail. By combining microstructural characterizations with tensile and fatigue testing the structure property relationship of this new developed case hardening steel is presented.