• Calderón, Luis Alexander Ávila

Abstract

Metal additive manufacturing (AM) is a technology that is increasingly the subject of research activities and industrial applications. However, it still faces challenges to achieve widespread use in safety-relevant applications. The main reasons for the delay of this technological breakthrough in favor of AM metals over conventionally manufactured variants are the lack of a deeper understanding of process-structure-property relationships and the limited availability of data on material properties. In this context, this work contributes to both achieving a better understanding of process-structure-property relationships and the improvement of data for 316L, an alloy frequently used as a structural material in various high-temperature components. The work focuses on a material variant produced by laser powder bed fusion, PBF-LB/M/316L. A conventionally produced variant, HR/316L, was also investigated. For PBF-LB/M/316L, the effect of selected heat treatments was also evaluated. The investigation included the characterization of the mechanical properties and the related deformation and damage mechanisms at elevated test temperatures in LCF and creep, where data and knowledge are scarce. The PBF-LB/M/316L variant studied has a low degree of porosity. Thus, this work is more focused on the microstructure than most studies available in the literature. The mechanical test campaign included tensile tests between room temperature and 650 °C, LCF tests between room temperature and 600 °C, and creep tests at 600 °C and 650 °C. In the absence of concrete guidelines and standards for testing of AM metals, the characterization mostly took place using existing international test standards and specimen geometries. From each of the test methods, corresponding strength, and deformation characteristic values were determined. In addition, targeted microstructural investigations contributed to understanding the relationship between the microstructure and the mechanical properties in terms of deformation and damage mechanisms. The proof stress of PBF-LB/M/316L is about twice that of HR/316L. This trend remains with increasing test temperature. The elongation after fracture is lower at all test temperatures. Regarding LCF, PBF-LB/M/316L exhibits higher cyclic stresses than HR/316L for most of the fatigue life, especially at room temperature. Exclusively at the smallest strain amplitudes, the fatigue lives of PBF-LB/M/316L are markedly shorter than in HR/316L. The cyclic stress-strain deformation behavior of PBF-LB/M/316L features an initial strain hardening followed by a continuous softening, which occurs until the softening leading to failure takes place. The creep rupture times and the duration of each creep stage are shorter for PBF-LB/M/316 than for HR/316L for all combinations of test parameters. The stress dependence of PBF-LB/M/316L is lower, and the creep ductility is smaller compared to HR/316L. The minimum creep rate is reached at significantly lower creep extensions for all parameter combinations tested. A heat treatment at 450 °C / 4 h did not cause significant changes in the microstructure and tensile behavior. An additional heat treatment at 900 °C / 1 h caused a decrease in the proof stress of PBF-LB/M/316L. However, it still remained higher than the one of HR/316L by a factor of 1.5x. The deformation characteristics were hardly affected. Regarding the creep behavior, this latter heat treatment at 900 °C / 1 h caused longer secondary and tertiary creep stages, and the creep strain increased significantly. The fracture characteristics generally differed, which happened not only but especially with increasing test temperature, where inter-granular cracking often took place in PBF-LB/M/316L. The cellular structure is considered the main factor contributing to the different mechanical properties compared to the HR/316L variant. In addition, grain morphology, stacking fault energy, and nitrogen content might play a role.

Topics

• impedance spectroscopy
• morphology
• grain
• Nitrogen
• strength
• fatigue
• selective laser melting
• porosity
• ductility
• creep
• creep test
• stacking fault