Influence of Pulsed Laser on Bead Morphology of Stainless Steel 316L Micro-wire in Directed Energy Deposition
S. Rathor, R. Kant, E. Singla and Parveen Kumar
Directed energy deposition (DED) with wire as the deposited material has shown great potential for additive manufacturing of thin-wall geometry. It offers higher material deposition efficiency, minimal material wastage, and a cleaner process environment using wire as a feed material. Micro-wires’ use got less attention to understanding the manufacturing of high aspect ratio beads, primarily by increasing the height compared to width. So, this study aims to investigate the single-layer deposited samples of stainless steel 316L micro-wire. Processing conditions for continuous wave (CW) and pulsed wave (PW) laser emission investigated for single-layer deposition regarding surface roughness, bead geometry, microstructure, and microhardness. The single layer deposition with an aspect ratio up to 1 was produced successfully, where layer height was between 0.6 and 0.7 mm. The results show that using micro-wire and PW laser yields lower heat affected zone (HAZ) close to powder-bed additive manufacturing (AM) processes.
Keywords: Additive manufacturing, pulsed laser, SS316L, surface roughness, bead morphology, micro-wire, DED