Applied Mechanics and Materials Vol.

760 (2015) pp 515-520 Submitted: 2014-08-10

© (2015) Trans Tech Publications, Switzerland Revised: 2014-09-19
doi:10.4028/www.scientific.net/AMM.760.515 Accepted: 2014-09-21
Online: 2015-05-18

Some Considerations Regarding Micro Hardness of Parts Manufactured

from 316-L Steel Using SLM Technology
BUICAN George-Răzvan1,a, OANCEA Gheorghe1,b, LANCEA Camil1,c
and POP Mihai Alin2,d
1
Department of Manufacturing Engineering, Transilvania University of Brasov, Mihai Viteazu 5,
500174, Brașov, Romania
2
Faculty of Materials Science and Engineering, Transilvania University of Brasov, Colina
Universității nr. 1, 500036, Brașov, Romania
a
buican.george@unitbv.ro, bgh.oancea@unitbv.ro, ccamil@unitbv.ro, dmihai.pop@unitbv.ro

Keywords: additive manufacturing, selective laser melting, 316-L steel, micro hardness.

Abstract. In this paper is investigated the effect of building parts with different layer sizes using an
additive manufacturing technique, from the statistical point of view. The paper is focused on the
differences that appear at the stainless steel parts when the building layer is increased, this being
done on the SLM 250 HL machine. This machine uses a fiber laser to melt fine powder on a layer-
by-layer basis to create three-dimensional metallic parts from CAD files. The samples were
constructed using two different layer thicknesses and then reprocess so that a micro hardness test
could be employed. The micro hardness’s are compared using statistical methods. Overall, the
obtained results indicate that the outcome influences the manufacturing strategy that it is chosen.

Introduction
x-y Scanner Laser
Additive manufacturing represents various
processes for making a three-dimensional object Laser window Building chamber
of almost any shape from a 3D model or other
digital data source primarily through additive Inert gas
processes in which successive layers of material Metal powder 316 L
are laid down under computer control [1]. Leveling
Selective laser melting is one of the additive system
manufacturing processes, and has the ability to
Infrared laser SLM part in
produce metallic parts with density of up to 98%. 316 L stainless
beam ϕ0,3µ
The SLM process enables the direct melting of steel
=0,03 mm
powders of a number of metals, such as titanium,
steel, chrome cobalt, aluminum alloys, and
building of parts through a “layer by layer” Retractable platform
approach. On each layer a scanning laser beam Fig. 1. Selective laser melting process
supplies the energy to locally melt a layer of
deposited metal powder and fuse it onto a
previously melted layer (Fig. 1.) [1]. Tabel 1. Overview of the SLM 250 HL machine
A lot of studies have been conducted on the
SLM technology, and thus progresses have been Build volume 250 x 250 x 250 (350) [mm]
made on the improvement of process parameters Fibre laser 200 [W]
and the finish build part [2]. Focal point 60 – 300 [µm]
By varying the build process parameters Layer thickness 20 – 100 [µm]
(laser speed, laser power, laser focus, laser Building speed 25 [cm3/h]
scanning strategy, layer thickness, or angle of Heater ~ 200 [°C]
incline) the properties of the final part can be Inert gas, Argon 4.6 - 5 [ bar], max. 3 [l/min ]
modified.

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516 Advanced Technologies in Designing and Progressive Development of
Manufacturing Systems

Parts Manufacturing
The parts for the experiment were drawn Tabel 2. Building parameters used on SLM 250 HL
in Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire and then
Parameters 50 [µm] 30 [µm]
exported in .STL file format to be build on
Laser power 100 [W] 100 [W]
the SLM 250 HL machine.
Laser scanning speed 150 [mm/s] 150 [mm/s]
The parts are building using two different
Hatch offset 0.175 [mm] 0.175 [mm]
strategies, one with a building layer thickness
Layer thickness 0.05 [mm] 0.03 [mm]
of 50 [µm] and the other one with a layer
Particle size 20-40 [µm]
thickness of 30 [µm]. By changing the
The calculated volume 76.19 [J] 126.98 [J]
selective laser melting parameters the energy density
properties of the final part are influenced.
There is an extensive research done on this
field, among which are the following: the
influence of the input energy on the surface
of the finish part made from 316L steel[3],
the relationship between energy density and
the different particle sizes that form the
fabricated tracks [4], the mechanical
properties of 316L parts from tree different
industries (thin wall structures, complex Fig. 2. Clicket (C 30 UM) Fig. 3. Star (S 30 UM) SLM
form structures, and structures with cavities) SLM manufactured part manufactured part
[5], optimization of surface roughness by employing the re-melting of
the outer layers [6], the influence that the build orientation has on the
mechanical properties, when the parts are made from 316 stainless steel
[7], the effects of the molten poll on the mechanical properties of 316 L
steel [8], and also the microstructure and tensile proprieties of parts
obtained from iron powder [9].
By changing the layer thickness and keeping everything else
constant the quantity of energy that is feed to each layer is modified.
This energy is calculated with the following equation [1]: Fig. 4. Oval (O 30 UM)
SLM manufactured part
∅= × ×
, (1)
where:
• ∅-volume energy density
• LP (laser power)-power of the laser used during the
manufacturing process;
• LSS-laser scanning speed the used by the laser beam when
scanning the layers;
• HO (hatch offset)-space between to hatch lines; Fig. 5. Plate (P 50 UM)
• LT (layer thickness) - thickness of building layer. SLM manufactured part
The parts manufactured for this research are: clicket (C 30 UM)
(Fig. 2.), star (S 30 UM) (Fig. 3.) and oval (O 30 UM) (Fig. 4.) for the
30 [µm] layer thickness and plate (P 50 UM), star (S 50 UM) and oval FP
(50 UM) (Fig. 5.) for the 50 [µm] layer thickness.
FII
Samples Preparation
The manufactured parts are process for the micro hardness test. To
measure the hardness the force is applied first perpendicular to the Fig. 6. Clicket (C 30 UM)
building layer (FP) and then parallel (FII). The plate (P 50 UM) and aplied forcess
clicket (C 30 UM) were generated with the layers parallel to the
machine table, thus the forces will be applied according to the Fig. 6.
 Applied Mechanics and Materials Vol. 760 517

and Fig. 7., while the star (S 30 UM, S 50 UM) and oval (O 30 UM, FP
O 50 UM) are built with the layers on a 45 degree angle in reference
to the machine table, thus the forces are applied as in Fig. 8.
The parts are cutted because the inner hardness is studied. The cuts FII
are made according to the Fig. 6, 7 and 8, with water cooled abrasive
disc thus that the internal structure will not be changed.
The cutted parts are prepared for the micro hardness test by
grinding them with sandpaper and gradually changing the granulation Fig. 7. Plate (P 50 UM)
(1500, 2000 and 2500). This grinding is made in order to obtain a aplied forcess
very smooth surface and to remove any marks left from cutting and
machining. These marks can influence the micro hardness readings.
The analysis surface must be finished such that the diagonals are
clearly defined and can be measured with ±5% or half micron
accuracy, whichever is larger. Cold-finishing is necessary as to not
temper or work harden the surface during preparation. [10]

Micro Hardness Measuring

The micro hardness is measured using the Micro hardness tester Fig. 8. Star (S 30 UM, S 50
FM 700, a device that can measure the HV hardness on micrometric UM) and Oval (O 30 UM, O
surfaces (on the grain level) on metals and nonmetals using load 50 UM) aplied forcess
forces between 1- 1000 [gf].
Micro indentation hardness test, is a hardness test using a
calibrated machine to force a diamond indenter of specific geometry
into the surface of the material being evaluated (Fig. 9.), in which the
test forces are 9.807x10-3 to 9.807 N (1 to 1000 gf) and the indentation
diagonal, or diagonals are measured with a light microscope after load
removal. For any test, it is assumed that the indentation does not
undergo elastic recovery after force removal.
When calculating the micro hardness, the indentation centers
should be placed at least 2.5X a diagonal apart. This is necessary to Fig. 9. Micro hardness mark
avoid the indentation-affected zone that surrounds each indent from left on SLM part
interfering with results. Indentation sites should be in regions that are
free of defects, scratches and surface contamination because this will
also affect the result.
To obtain a Vickers hardness number, HV, that is an expression of
hardness, the applied force is divided to a Vickers indenter by the d2
surface area of the permanent indentation made by the indenter.
Vickers indenter is a square-based pyramidal-shaped diamond
indenter with face angles of 136°.
For the micro-range Vickers hardness test loads are typically in
grams-force [gf] and indentation diagonals are in micrometers [µm].
d1
The Vickers hardness number, in terms of [gf] and [µm], is
Fig. 10. Micro hardness
calculated as follows [11]: vickers mark, evaluation
HV = 1854.4 × , (2)
where: P is force in [gf] and d is mean diagonal length of the indentation, [µm] (Fig.10.)
On the cold-finished faces of the parts, forces are applied according with Fig. 6, 7 and 8. The
forces, F=500 [gf], are applied for t=15 [s]. For each part were taken 18 readings, 9 of the readings
having the force applied on a perpendicular angle (Fig. 6, 7 and 8.), and 9 with the force applied
parallel to the building layer, thus, the values from Table 3 and Table 4 were obtained.
518 Advanced Technologies in Designing and Progressive Development of
Manufacturing Systems
Table 3. Micro hardness for parts manufactured with layer thickness 30 [µm]
C 30 UM FP C 30 UM FII S 30 UM FV S 30 UM FC O 30 UM FV O 30 UM FC
No.
[HV] [HV] [HV] [HV] [HV] [HV]
1 231.7 233.3 209.8 200.3 220.7 215.6
2 207.4 214.3 218.7 203 219.3 216.7
3 187.2 161.8 211.8 201.5 222.6 212.1
4 183 230.4 200.8 205.7 205.5 221.6
5 218.9 219.9 207.2 220.3 213.8 213.7
6 245.9 195 180.6 206.3 239.3 234.8
7 199.2 215.7 194.9 209.4 227.8 214.9
8 201.4 205.4 215 220.1 200.8 226.7
9 204 215.5 212.1 198.9 208.5 229
Table 4. Micro hardness for parts manufactured with layer thickness 50 [µm]
P 50 UM FP P 50 UM FII S 50 UM FV S 50 UM FC O 50 UM FV O 50 UM FC
No.
[HV] [HV] [HV] [HV] [HV] [HV]
1 209.3 199.3 217.9 223.5 213.5 223.2
2 198.3 211.3 239.2 223.6 200.7 219.6
3 200.2 186.2 244.2 225.3 204 214.3
4 191.5 196.8 219.9 223.9 216.4 205.5
5 194 210.5 226.2 226 226.7 213.4
6 200.7 213.2 221.7 213 212 211.3
7 194.6 201.3 173.8 255.2 199.4 226.2
8 191.4 206 226.2 231.5 216.9 208.2
9 230.6 199.1 221.9 206.7 206.5 221.9

Table 5. Statistical calculations for the gather data Results Interpreting

To analyze all the gather data a
Statistics frequency distribution histogram is generated
30 [um] 50 [um] for each set of gather measurements and the
Valid 54 54 statistical indicators are calculated.
N
Missing 0 0
Var30um
Mean 211.66 212.85 Var30um
Std. Error of Mean 2.04 2.03
Median 213.17 213.10
Mode 200.80 226.20
Std. Deviation 14.99458 14.91783
Variance 224.84 222.54
Skewness -0.559 0.144
Frequency

Std. Error of Skewness 0.325 0.325

Kurtosis 1.607 0.641
Std. Error of Kurtosis 0.639 0.639
Range 84.10 81.40
Minimum 161.80 173.80
Maximum 245.90 255.20
Sum 11429.80 11493.70
25 203.00 200.90
Percentiles 50 213.17 213.10
75 220.10 223.50 Var30um
Fig. 11. Histogram ofVar30um
micro hardnesses for 30
[µm] layer thicknes

The calculated parameters for the 50 [µm] and 30 [µm] are shown in Table 5, and the two
histograms are shown in Fig. 11 and 12.
 Applied Mechanics and Materials Vol. 760 519

The shapes of the distributions that

approximate the frequency charts are, as it is
seen in Fig. 1.1 and 12., unimodal (have only one
mode), symmetrical and bell-shaped.
The Boxtype graph of the quartile and the
median reinforces the distribution of the two data
sets as being symmetrical one (Fig. 13.).
From the calculation of the lower and
upper fences of the distribution the outlier data
points are revealed. In the 30 [µm] table data
there is only one outlier value (161.80 [HV])
wile in the 50 [µm] there are more values (173.8,
239.2, 244.2, 255.2 [HV]). The outliers indicate
that the parts can have some defects in the
internal structure or that errors appeared in the
measurement process.
By computing the validation test the
aberrant values are screened, but, from this test Fig. 12. Histogram of micro hardnesses for 50
the outlier points came out validated as part of [µm] layer thicknes
the model, so the analysis is carried on with all
the readings, without removing anything.
The distributions can be characterized in
mathematical terms by calculating the average
and the standard deviation, alongside with other
statistical parameters as seen in Table 5.
In Table 3, where the micro hardness for
the 30 [µm] build parts is centralized, it can be
observed that 72% of values are between the
interval average ± standard deviation ( ±s), 94%
are between ±2s, and 96% are between ±3s.
In Table 4, where the measurements of
the micro hardness from the 50 [µm] parts are
presented, 78% of the observations fall between
±s, 94% are between ±2s, and 96% are
Var30um Var50um
between ±3s. Fig. 13. Boxtype grapfh of the 30[µm] and 50 [µm]
For a unimodal distribution that is not representing the quartile and the mean
skewed and does not have very long tails the
usual values are: 68% of the observation between ±s, 95% between ±2s and >99% between
±3s. The two distributions classify as unimodal distributions with a small skew and small tails as
seen in Table 5 and Fig. 11 and 12.
The data from the two graphs is approximated by a normal distribution, var30um (211.6
[HV], 14.994) and var30um (212.85 [HV], 14.917).

Conclusion
The 30 [µm] layer thickness building strategy has a mean of 211.6 [HV], a standard
deviation of 14.994, a range of 84.10 and a coefficient of variation of 7.08%, thus, the standard
deviation is 7.08% as large as the mean.
The 50 [µm] layer thickness building strategy has a mean of 212.85 [HV], a standard
deviation of 14.917, a range of 81.40 and a coefficient of variation of 7.01%, thus, the standard
deviation is 7.01% as large as the mean.
520 Advanced Technologies in Designing and Progressive Development of
Manufacturing Systems

From the above it can be concluded that the 50 [µm] layer thickness building strategy has a
less variation according to the standard deviation, and a lower range of values. It is also observable
that the mean value of the micro hardness is higher in the 50 [µm] strategy (212.85 [HV]) then the
30 [µm] (211.6 [HV]). All of this points to the fact that the 50 [µm] strategies produces slightly
better results
By adopting the 50 [µm] building strategy there is not only a slightly increased in the
hardness of the parts, but also a lower production time that derives from the fact that there are less
construction layers. A lowering in the building time comes also with a lowering of the building
costs. The 30 [µm] strategy can produce approximately the same result as the 50 [µm] but at a
longer build time and thus with more cost. Therefore it is not preferred in favor of the 50 [µm] in
the case of building parts from the stainless steel 316L powder with selective laser melting
technology.

Acknowledgements: This paper is supported by the Sectoral Operational Programme Human

Resources Development (SOP HRD), ID134378 financed from the European Social Fund and by
the Romanian Government. We hereby acknowledge the structural founds project PRO-DD (POS-
CCE, O.2.2.1., ID 123, SMIS 2637, ctr. No 11/2009) for providing the infrastructure used in this
work and the project.

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Advanced Technologies in Designing and Progressive Development of Manufacturing Systems
10.4028/www.scientific.net/AMM.760

Some Considerations Regarding Micro Hardness of Parts Manufactured from 316-L Steel Using SLM
Technology
10.4028/www.scientific.net/AMM.760.515

DOI References
[3] D. Wang, Y. Yang, X. Su, Y. Chen, Study on energy input and its influences on single track, multi-track
and multi-layer in SLM., Int J Adv Manuf Technol 58, (2012), 1189-1199.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00170-011-3443-y
[4] T.H.C. Childs, C. Hauser, M. Badrossamay, Selective laser sintering (melting) of stainless and tool steel
powders: experiments and modeling, J Eng Manuf 219, (2005), 339-357.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1243/095440505X8109
[5] X. Su, Y. Yang, D. Xiao, Z. Luo., An investigation into direct fabrication of fine-structured components
by selective laser melting, Int J Adv Manuf 64, (2013), 1231-1238.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00170-012-4081-8
[6] K. Alrbaey, D. Wimpenny, R. Tosi, W. Manning, and A. Moroz, On Optimization of Surface Roughness
of Selective Laser Melted Stainless Steel Parts: A Statistical Study, JMEPEG 23, (2014), 2139-2148.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11665-014-0993-9
[7] T. Itziar, G. Fermín, Z. Fidel, Z. Fidel, E. Aritz, Study of mechanical properties of AISI 316 stainless steel
processed by selective laser melting, following different manufacturing strategies, Int J Adv Manuf Technol
51, (2010), 639-647.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00170-010-2631-5
[8] S. Wen, S. Li, Q. Wei, Y. Chunze, S. Zhang,Y. Shi, Effect of molten pool boundaries on the mechanical
properties of selective laser melting parts, Journal of Materials Processing Technology 214, (2014), 2660-
2667.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jmatprotec.2014.06.002