Tver Railroad Carriage Works (Tver, Russia)
N. A. Shteyner, Engineer, shteiner_na@tvz.ru
Tver State Technical University (Tver, Russia)
L. E. Afanasieva, Cand. Phys.-Math., Associate Prof., Dept. of Metal Technology and Materials Science, ludmila.a@mail.ru
A study was carried out of the microstructure and mechanical properties of austenitic stainless steel obtained using direct laser deposition. The production of samples was carried out on a robotic laser technological complex equipped with a 4 kW fiber laser and a powder feeder. Fe-Cr-Ni-Mo alloying system powder of the EuTroLoy 16316D.04 brand was used as a filler material. Powder particle size is 53-150 μm. It has been shown that steel produced using direct laser deposition has a highly dispersed dendritic structure with a dendritic parameter value (distance between second-order axes) of 5.45 μm. Within the same field of view of a microscope, dendrites of different orientations in space are found. Most often, these are two mutually perpendicular directions: in the plane of the layer and in the direction of growing the sample. Thanks to its unique microstructure, the steel has a higher Vickers hardness of 239-243 HV and strength (tensile strength σ0.2 = 518 MPa, tensile strength σв, 746 MPa) compared to similar steel produced using traditional technology, but is inferior in ductility. It has been shown that non-metallic inclusions noticeably (up to two times) reduce the plasticity characteristics, while the strength may decrease slightly. To increase the ductility of stainless steel manufactured using direct laser deposition, it is recommended to carry out mandatory incoming inspection of the filler material and quality control of the melt pool protection during the manufacture of the part to prevent the formation of nonmetallic inclusions.
The authors are grateful to Pavel Alexandrovich Meleshin, Head of the Laser Technologies Department at ThermoLaser LLC (Vladimir), for providing the samples.
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