Manufacturing Letters 16 (2018) 36–39

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Manufacturing Letters
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/mfglet

Effect of process parameters on tribological performance of 316L

stainless steel parts fabricated by selective laser melting
Hua Li a, Maziar Ramezani a,⇑, Ming Li b, Chao Ma c, Jyhwen Wang c
a
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Auckland University of Technology, Auckland 1010, New Zealand
b
Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77845, USA
c
Department of Engineering Technology and Industrial Distribution, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77845, USA

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Selective laser melting (SLM) is an additive manufacturing technique based on metallic powders that are
Received 14 December 2017 melted by the energy of laser with a layer build-up technique. This paper investigates the effect of process
Received in revised form 3 April 2018 parameters on tribological performance of 316L stainless steel samples made by SLM. Rectangular sam-
Accepted 21 April 2018
ples were produced using SLM at different laser powers and along different build-up directions. Sliding
Available online 23 April 2018
wear tests were conducted under two different normal loads at a constant frequency of 4 Hz in ambient
temperature. A scanning electron microscope was used for observing the microstructures and wear
Keywords:
tracks. The results showed that lower laser powers resulted in samples with lower hardness and densities
Build-up direction
Laser power
and lack of fusion at melt pools boundaries. However, the effects of laser power and build-up direction on
Selective laser melting coefficient of friction (COF) and wear rate are not significant. At higher contact pressures, wear rate was
Sliding wear higher, but COF was not affected remarkably. The findings suggest that further study of process param-
eters, material properties and performance can advance tribological applications of SLM parts.
Ó 2018 Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME). Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Selective laser melting (SLM) is one of the most popular metal
additive manufacturing (AM) technologies, which builds a part
by selectively melting powdered feedstock layer by layer [1]. With
many advantages, such as the high flexibility of product’s shape,
short process time, and various materials availability, SLM has
been a very attractive technique. Due to its distinctive processing
philosophy, the quality of production is strongly related to SLM
processing parameters (e.g. laser power, build-up direction, scan
speed, and hatch distance).
Various studies have been conducted on the effects of process-
ing parameters on SLMed parts; however, little work has been
done in the field of tribological properties. Tribology plays an
important role in engineering and characterising the tribological
performance of materials is crucial [2]. Previous studies indicated
that processing parameters such as laser power, point distance or
scan speed have strong effects on density of parts produced by
SLM and the presence of porosity leads to a decrease in mechanical
strength [3]. SEM images showed large-sized irregular-shaped
pores were distributed in microstructure of components made by
SLM [4]. It was also reported that laser power is one of the most
influential process parameters; and with decrease in the laser
power, the tensile properties deteriorate due to the increase of
porosity [5]. Some authors illustrated that with optimized param-
eters, SLM process is capable of producing highly dense (98–99.5%
of theoretical density) parts [6–8].
A positive linear correlation between volume percentage of
porosity and wear rate was found by Sun et al. [9] for SLMed sam-
ples. However, more studies on processing parameter are required
to deal with reducing porosity. It has been shown by Gu et al. [1]
that insufficient densification and coarsened grains which caused
by unoptimized scanning speed limit the hardness of SLMed pure
Ti parts. By adjusting linear energy densities, Gu et al. [1] found
that wear rate and COF followed similar trend with hardness per-
formance. Nevertheless, to the best of the author’s knowledge,
there are still no related studies focusing on inherent relationship
between processing parameters and wear behaviour of SS 316L
material and a systematic approach to investigate the effect of
SLM process parameters on tribological behaviour is still missing.
The objective of this study is therefore to investigate the sliding
wear behaviours of SS 316L parts fabricated by SLM with different
laser powers and building orientations.

⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: maziar.ramezani@aut.ac.nz (M. Ramezani).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mfglet.2018.04.003
2213-8463/Ó 2018 Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME). Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 H. Li et al. / Manufacturing Letters 16 (2018) 36–39 37

2. Material and methods
A commercial SLM machine (Renishaw AM400) equipped with
an inert gas and vacuum system was used to produce the samples
with 316L stainless steel powder (Renishaw 316L-0407) with a
particle size of 15–45 mm. The machine uses a fibre laser with a
wavelength of 1070 nm, whose beam diameter at the focal point
is 70 mm. Test samples were made by four different laser powers
of 100 W, 150 W, 200 W and 300 W and three different build-up
directions. A hatch distance of 110 mm and a layer thickness of
50 mm were used for producing the samples with an exposure time
of 80 ms.
The densities of the samples were measured before the sliding
wear tests using Archimedes’ principles. The dimensions of the
samples were approximately 40
15
5 mm3. Hardness of the
samples were also measured by a Rockwell micro-hardness tester
based on ASTM E-18 standard and the mean values were calculated
through five measurements. A stylus profilometer was used to
measure the surface roughness of the samples before and after
grinding and polishing.
The samples were mechanically ground and polished and ultra-
sonically cleaned before wear tests. It is worth noting that the
grinding direction in all samples was along the sliding direction.
Sliding wear tests were conducted under dry contact condition
and at ambient temperature using a linear reciprocating ball on
plate tribometer. SS 316L plates were fixed on the tribometer,
while the upper ball slides over the samples. A wear distance of
1000 m and a sliding stroke of 10 mm were used for all tests. The
upper balls were made of E-52100 hardened steel with 58 HRC
and 10 mm in diameter. The roughness of the ball, Ra was 0.04
mm. Two different normal loads of 10 N and 20 N were used for
the sliding wear tests at a constant frequency of 4 Hz. These two
loads result in Hertzian contact stresses of 534 MPa and 672
MPa, respectively. COF versus time were recorded during each test
and the mass loss were measured after each test. Wear rates were
then calculated by dividing the wear volume by sliding distance.

Table 1
Surface roughness, hardness and density of test samples.

Power Built-up Hardness after grinding Surface roughness before grinding Surface roughness after grinding Average Density Porosity
(W) direction (Rockwell C) Ra (mm) Ra (mm) (kg/m3) (%)
100 1 14.4 24.4 0.17 6558 17.5
150 1 17.6 15.4 0.10 7345 7.6
200 1 23.8 7.5 0.05 7638 3.9
200 2 22.3 7.9 0.05 7661 3.6
200 3 20.8 8.2 0.05 7753 2.5
300 1 24.8 6.7 0.05 7669 3.5

(a) (b)

(c) (d)

Fig. 1. Porosity produced by different laser powers: (a) 100 W, (b) 150 W, (c) 200 W, and (d) 300 W.
38 H. Li et al. / Manufacturing Letters 16 (2018) 36–39
All tests were repeated three times and the average values and
standard deviations were calculated.
3. Results and discussion
Table 1 shows the surface roughness, hardness, density and
porosity of samples made by different laser powers and with dif-
ferent built-up directions. The porosity was estimated based on
the measured density, p ¼ 1  q=qth , where p is the porosity, q is
the measured density, and qth is the theoretical density of the
material (7950 kg/m3). Hardness test results showed that it
increases by the increasing laser power, and hardness values for
200 W and 300 W laser powers are almost the same. SLM compo-
nents had rough surface finish with the root mean square value Ra
of samples ranging between 6.7 and 24.4 mm. This is far from real
engineering applications and therefore, coarse grinding and polish-
ing were used to finish the contact surfaces of all specimens. The
root mean square values Ra of samples after grinding and polishing
are presented in Table 1. Samples made by lower laser powers have
higher surface roughness. The samples made by 300 W laser power
have the hardest and finest surfaces as well as relatively higher
density compared with other samples. The effect of build-up direc-
tion on surface roughness, hardness and density is not remarkable.
Porosity is a common defect in SLM products that negatively
affects their mechanical properties. Fig. 1 shows the porosity of
samples made by different laser powers taken by scanning electron
microscope (SEM). As illustrated in the figure, pores can be
decreased by increasing the laser power and a nearly fully dense
Fig. 2. (a and b) Effect of laser power on COF and wear volume (Build-up direction 1, 4 Hz frequency), (c and d) Effect of build-up direction on COF and wear volume (200 W
laser power, 4 Hz frequency).
part can be produced by 300 W laser power. Lack of fusion occurs
due to insufficient power supplied to a region of powder. It can also
be seen in Table 1 that porosity increases significantly at lower
laser powers.
Fig. 2 shows the effect of laser power, normal load and build-up
direction on COF and wear rate. As can be seen in Fig. 2(a) and (b),
an increase in normal load results in an increase in wear rate, how-
ever the effect of normal load on COF is not significant. This trend
can be seen for all samples made by different laser powers. As
demonstrated in Table 1, the hardness indeed increases with
higher laser power. The wear performance, however, does not
improve with increased hardness. It can be seen in Fig. 2 that sam-
ples made by lower laser powers (100 W and 150 W) show wear
resistance similar to the samples made by highest laser power
(300 W). This is mainly due to their porous structure, where part
of the debris produced from the wear test can be pressed into
the pores in the wear track. The pores produced at lower laser
powers actually attract the wear debris. The debris is buried into
the pores and welded to the base material due to high contact pres-
sure, which will increase the hardness during sliding wear tests
and improve the wear resistance of the samples. The observation
of wear tracks in Fig. 3 for samples made with different laser pow-
ers showed they all have similar morphology and no pore could be
found in the wear track, even for originally porous samples made
at lower laser powers.
Different build-up directions as well as the sliding direction are
illustrated in Fig. 2(c). The sliding direction in all wear tests were
along the longest side of the specimen. Fig. 2(c) and (d) show the
 H. Li et al. / Manufacturing Letters 16 (2018) 36–39
(a)
(c)
Fig. 3. Wear track for samples produced by different laser powers: (a) 100 W, (b) 150 W, (c) 200 W, and (d) 300 W. (4 Hz frequency, 20 N normal load, build-up direction 1).
effect of build-up direction on COF and wear rate. The results
showed that COF and wear rate seems not to be influenced much
by fabrication orientation at the lower load of 10 N, but wear ani-
sotropy can be observed at the higher applied load of 20 N.
Although the differences are not significant, but the effect of
build-up direction on wear performance needs further
investigation.
4. Conclusions
A linear reciprocating tribometer was used to perform dry slid-
ing wear tests on 316L stainless steel samples made by SLM with
different laser powers and build-up directions. The results showed
that laser powers and build-up directions do not have a remarkable
influence on COF and wear rate. With lower laser powers, samples
with more pores and lower hardness were produced. This should
indicate a high wear rate, but the test results showed the speci-
mens from lower laser powers have a lower or similar wear rate
compare to those from higher laser power. It is believed that, dur-
ing the test, plastic deformation eliminates the pores in those spec-
imens from low laser power setting. Therefore, for wear
applications, parts can be made from lower laser power with no
detrimental effect on wear performance.
39
(b)
(d)
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