Metal Additive Manufacturing Conference - MAMC 2024

Abstract

This work investigates the corrosion morphology of AISI 316L stainless steel produced by laser powder bed fusion (L-PBF). The behavior of the as printed surface is compared with that of the bulk material to understand the effect of microstructure and roughness of the as printed surface on its corrosion behavior.
The L-PBF specimens investigated in this work were manufactured with a Concept Laser M2 Cusing machine, equipped with a 400 W single-mode CW ytterbium-doped fiber laser with emission wavelength of 1070 nm. Process parameters were optimized in order to obtain samples with very low porosity. The L-PBF stainless steel specimens were tested in the as produced condition without stress relief or recrystallization heat treatments.
A detailed characterization of the microstructure of the L-PBF 316L stainless steel samples was carried out by FE-SEM and EDXS. The as printed surface was investigated by optical microscopy and profilometry. Galvanostatic polarization measurements were carried out to evaluate the morphology of attack in 0.1M NaCl solution. After galvanostatic tests, the surface of the corroded samples was characterized by FE-SEM to highlight the higher corrosion susceptibility of the as printed surface relative to the bulk.