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Towards understanding side-skin surface characteristics in laser powder bed fusion

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Abstract

Additively manufactured parts produced via laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) have limitations in their applications due to post-processing requirements caused by high surface roughness. The characteristics of side-skin surfaces are generally assumed to be dominated by adhered powder particles. This work aims to analyze and interpret the effects of LPBF processing parameters on side-skin surfaces. As such, this work has two sections to investigate the effect of (i) core and (ii) border LPBF parameters on side-skin surface roughness for Ti–6Al–4V. The findings show that there is a robust correlation between both core and border LPBF parameters on side-skin surface morphologies. In terms of core LPBF parameters, an interaction between laser power and beam velocity is shown to influence side-skin surface roughness, resulting in Sa values in the range of 11–26 µm. Additionally, a preliminary investigation into the effect of melting mode phenomena at the border leads to a possibility of obtaining Sa values of <10 µm, with reduced effects of adhered and partially fused powder.

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Acknowledgments

The authors appreciate the funding support received from the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario (FedDev Ontario) Grant No. 104809 and the support from the Ontario Advanced Manufacturing Consortium (AMC). In addition, the authors would like to acknowledge the help of Jerry Ratthapakdee, Karl Rautenberg, Justin Memar, and Tatevik Minasyan in helping with the deployment and characterization of builds, and the motivation and support of the MSAM Group at the University of Waterloo.

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  1. Department of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering, University of Waterloo, N2L 3G1, Waterloo, ON, Canada

    Sagar Patel, Allan Rogalsky & Mihaela Vlasea

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  1. Sagar Patel
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Correspondence to Mihaela Vlasea.

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Patel, S., Rogalsky, A. & Vlasea, M. Towards understanding side-skin surface characteristics in laser powder bed fusion. Journal of Materials Research 35, 2055–2064 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1557/jmr.2020.125

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