Metal Additive Manufacturing Conference - MAMC 2020

The requirements regarding the materials in use are steadily increasing in the AM market. As part of a GER-CAN research project (HiPTSLAM), the development of high-performance tool steels for AM is a promising topic regarding the acceptance of LPBF technology for functionally optimized die, forming and cutting tools. Therefore, a holistic development process to efficiently qualify new materials is introduced and its advantages are shown based on a case study with a maraging tool steel. The chemical composition of the steel was particularly developed for the use in the LPBF process to achieve beneficial performance properties. In the case study, effects of the LPBF parameters are evaluated on the material properties. Based on initial microstructure analysis, a promising set of parameters is used to build samples for heat treatment studies and mechanical characterization. The overall material porosity down to 0.06 % with a high tolerance for varying LPBF parameters showing a good processability of the new martensitic tool steel alloy. The hardness of the LPBF samples could be increased by different heat treatment procedures. The highest hardness of 59 HRC was only achieved by a combination of solution annealing, quenching and tempering. By means of further investigations on the process interfaces, it will be possible to optimize the interaction of the whole LPBF process chain to increase the number of qualified materials with better performance properties.