Surface Quality of Metal Parts Produced by Laser Powder Bed Fusion: Ion Polishing in Gas-Discharge Plasma Proposal

Abstract

Additive manufacturing has evolved over the past decades into a technology that provides freedom of design through the ability to produce complex-shaped solid structures, reducing the operational time and material volumes in manufacturing significantly. However, the surface of parts manufactured by the additive method remains now extremely rough. The current trend of expanding the industrial application of additive manufacturing is researching surface roughness and finishing. Moreover, the limited choice of materials suitable for additive manufacturing does not satisfy the diverse design requirements, necessitating additional coatings deposition. Requirements for surface treatment and coating deposition technology depend on the intended use of the parts, their material, and technology. In most cases, they cannot be determined based on existing knowledge and experience. It determines the scientific relevance of the analytical research and development of scientific and technological principles of finishing parts obtained by laser additive manufacturing and functional coating deposition. There is a scientific novelty of analytical research that proposes gas-discharge plasma processing for finishing laser additive manufactured parts and technological principles development including three processing stages—explosive ablation, polishing with a concentrated beam of fast neutral argon atoms, and coating deposition—for the first time.