Progress on Investigation of Pores During Selective Laser Melting of Metal Powders and Future Work Discussion

Abstract

Pores are always considered as a kind of defect during manufacturing metal parts via many conventional processes. But porous metals have outstanding physical and mechanical properties which providing them double natures of function and structure, and are applied in many fields of science and technology. Selective laser melting (SLM), developed within current years, has the advantages of producing metal parts with complex structures, and can be used to manufacture complex structures of any kind theoretically. A new method of making porous complicated metal structures via SLM is put forward. Then, the meaning of this method, research advance and future work discussion are presented in this paper, which lays a method foundation for future study and build a new field for both porous metal parts and SLM technology.