Experimental Investigation and Analysis of Direct Metal Laser Sintering Process for CL50WS Material

Abstract

ABSTRACT newlineNowadays, Additive Manufacturing (AM) technology is widely accepted by industries for their unique capabilities to produce direct parts from a Computer Aided Design (CAD) file. Direct Metal Laser Sintering (DMLS) is emerging technology amongst various AM methods. DMLS is one of the AM techniques adapted to produce the three dimensional parts or functional unit by laser sintered material layer by layer without using any binder, vibration force or mechanical force. According to current market demands, several industries (especially aerospace and tooling) have been forced to reduce the time and being cost effective along with the high level of quality. This pressure has forced these industries to optimize the parameters for the better DMLS fabricated components. newlineRecently, CL50WS (Maraging 18Ni 300 steel) has attained a lot of attention with metallic AM technologies. CL50WS is being most commonly used hot tool steel with its widespread applications across tooling industries, aerospace, automotive, medical and other industries. This is possible because of its superior properties like high strength, high fracture toughness, and good weldability at elevated temperatures. Notwithstanding, the mechanical properties of DMLS made parts are not fully rely on material utilized; they are also affected by the process parameters. With DMLS, numerous process parameters affect the surface quality and mechanical properties of parts, including the laser power, scanning speed, layer thickness and hatch spacing. newlineIn this regards, present study conduct to investigate the surface roughness, dimensional accuracy, hardness, impact strength and wear rate of DMLS made components. This research has been made to determine the optimal parametric set which can be satisfied the aforementioned performance characteristic as per the desire aspect. Initially, the desirability function approach has been used to determine the parametric set; but weight assigning to the each response are being made erroneous outcome. To get rid of these problem