Experimental investigation of charpy impact tests on metallic SLM parts

Selective Laser Melting (SLM) is a layer-additive manufacturing technology making it possible to create fully functional parts directly from standard metal powders without using any intermediate binders or any additional post-processing steps. During the process, a laser source selectively scans a powder bed according to the CAD data of the part to be produced and powder particles are completely molten by a high intensity laser beam. SLM is capable of producing near full density metallic parts with an almost infinite geometric freedom. However, the mechanical properties obtained with SLM may differ from the ones of bulk material. In this study, Charpy impact tests are applied on the samples that were produced by SLM from different metallic powders; a titanium alloy Ti-6Al-4V, stainless steel 316L (X2CrNiMo18-14-3) and maraging steel 300 (X3CoMoTi18-9-5). The influence of building axis as well as of various heat treatments applied on the samples after SLM is investigated. The evolution of the microstructures of the sample parts is also studied.