Surface laser processing of maraging steel parts manufactured by selective laser melting: effect on pass geometry and hardness

Abstract

Abstract Due to the possibility to produce the parts with complex internal and external geometries, selective laser melting (SLM) process attracts growing interest in various fields of engineering segments such as aircraft, aerospace, biomedical, automotive, marine industries and tooling. Maraging steels, having excellent weldability and high resistance to thermal fatigue due to the lack of carbon, has showed good suitability for SLM [1]. However, owing to the limited hardness and wear resistance, maraging steels has limited application at the harsh wear conditions [4]. In this study, the possibility to improve the surface characteristics of DIN 1.2709 steel SLM parts by application of laser alloying technology is evaluated. The surface of SLM part was laser processed at various laser spot diameters and varying laser scanning speeds from 500 to 1500 mm⋅min-1, with and without preposition of alloying element. The power density was provided in the range from ~0.8⋅103 W⋅cm-2 to ~51⋅103 W⋅cm-2 and heat input – from 4 to 12 J⋅mm-1. The effect of laser processing parameters and presence of alloying element on the geometry of obtained processed passes and hardness of surface was evaluated. It was determined, that the application of CO2 continuous laser at the parameters of 1 kW laser power, 0.5 mm laser beam spot diameter and laser scanning speed in the range between 500 mm⋅min-1 and 1250 mm⋅min-1 allows obtaining laser pool of acceptable geometry and sizes directly on as-manufactured SLM part surface without any pre-processing. The increasing scanning speed to 1500 mm⋅min-1 or spot size to 2.0 and 3.0 mm results in too small pool depth and unstable pool geometry. The laser processing with preposition of alloying element layer provided surface alloying effect of the maraging steel SLM part. The hardness of processed surface areas ranged between ~600 HV0.2 at the lowest scanning speed and ~1770 HV0.2 at the highest speed, what is from 18% to ~3.5 times higher, as compared with maximum hardness of 1.2709 maraging steel after aging (~58 HRC or ~510 HV).