Additive Manufacturing of

Tool Steel
Karthick Sivaraman
fx5935
Overview of Tool Steel
• Tool steel refers to variety of carbon and alloy steels particularly well
suited for tooling , shaping and cutting materials
• Their characteristics are distinctive hardness, resistance to abrasion
and deformation, ability to hold cutting edge at elevated
temperatures
• There are six groups of tool steels: water-hardening, cold-work, shock-
resistant, high-speed, hot-work, and special purpose
 H13 Tool Steel
• Versatile chromium-molybdenum hot work steel that is widely used in
hot work and cold work tooling applications
• Excellent combination of high toughness and resistance to thermal
fatigue cracking (also known as heat checking) H13 is used for more
hot work tooling applications than any other tool steel
• Applications: hot work applications: pressure die casting tools,
extrusion tools, forging dies, hot shear blades, stamping dies, plastic
molds. ESR H13 is great for aluminum die-casting tools and plastic
mold tools requiring a very high polish.
Conventional Manufacturing of Tool steel
• Primary Melting
• Electroslag Melting
• Primary Breakdown
• Rolling
• Hot and Cold Drawing
• Continuous Casting
• Powder Metallurgy
• Osprey process

Link - https://www.metalsupermarkets.com/how-is-tool-steel-made/
• Advantage of Additive Manufacturing of Tool Steel
• SLM process has a number of advantages such as netshape fabrication without the
use of molds or dies, high process flexibility, fabrication of parts with high degree of
freedom
• Applicability to a wide range of materials
• Reduction in overall cost of developing and fabricating tools
• Short production time

• Disadvantages of Conventional Manufacturing of Tool Steel

• Conventional methods require expensive dedicated tools
• Not suitable for small-scale production and the production of complex shapes.
Nanocrystalline TiC-reinforced H13 steel matrix
nanocomposites fabricated by selective laser melting
• Nanocomposite feedstock powders were prepared by a mechanical
alloying method based on high-energy ball milling
• The evolution of constitutional phases and microstructural features of
the milled powders was investigated as a function of milling time
• Selective laser melting (SLM) was applied to produce nanoscale 15%
(by volume) TiC-reinforced H13 steel matrix nanocomposites
Results
• SLM, uniformly dispersed nanoscale TiC particles with a mean particle
size of 50 nm were obtained and a fine heterogeneous structure was
observed
• Relative to the unreinforced H13 steel part, the TiC/H13 steel
nanocomposite parts exhibited 1) Higher hardness
2)Higher Elastic modulus,
3)Lower friction and a Lower wear rate;
these improvements are attributed to the combined effects of grain
refinement and grain boundary strengthening
Selective laser melting of TiB2/H13 steel nanocomposites: Influence
of hot
isostatic pressing post-treatment
• The microstructure of the as-built nanocomposite comprised of fine equiaxed grains
with TiB2 particles homogenously dispersed in the H13 steel grains and grain
boundaries
• HIP involves the simultaneous application of high temperature and pressure on the
component through an inert gas.
• Hot isostatic pressing (HIP) post-treatment was applied to improve the final density
of the SLM fabricated component, and the results were compared with those of an
untreated component
• The HIP post-treatment effectively eliminated major pores in the nanocomposites
• A slight increase in the wear rate after the post-treatment was observed as a result
of the grain coarsening and agglomeration of the TiB2 nanoparticles in the H13
matrix
Results and Discussion
• The HIP post-treatment was confirmed to be an effective method for
eliminating major pores, fusion defects, and large-scale internal porosity
from worst-case components fabricated by AM under non-optimized
conditions
• However, surface and gas-filled pores were observed to be retained.
• This AM process showed better mechanical properties compared to
components produced by casting and machining.
• Further investigation of the effects of some key process parameters on
the microstructure and mechanical properties of the final product is
required to optimize HIP post treatment and SLM parameters
 Other papers – AM of H13 Tool Steel
1. Direct metal deposition (DMD) of H13 tool steel on copper alloy substrate:Evaluation of mechanical
properties
2. Experimental study and modeling of H13 steel deposition using laserhot-wire additive manufacturing
3. Cutting forces analysis in additive manufactured AISI H13 alloy
4. Direct additive laser manufacturing using gas- and water-atomised H13 tool steel powders
5. Effect of Energy Input on the Characteristic of AISI H13 and D2 Tool Steels Deposited by a Directed Energy
Deposition Process
6. Characterization of microstructure and residual stress in a 3D H13 tool steel component produced by
additive manufacturing
7. SLM additive manufacture of H13 tool steel with conformal cooling and structural lattices
General Tool Steel
8. Characteristics of laser aided direct metal/material deposition process for tool steel
9. Microstructure and properties of FeCrMoVC tool steel produced by selective laser melting
10. On the development of direct metal laser sintering for rapid tooling
Conclusion
• The application of SLM to the fabrication of tools would enable the
achievement of geometrically complex shapes and consistently high-
quality products
• Reduce the overall cost of developing and fabricating tools
• Shorten the production time, and reduce investment in human
resources owing to the use of unmanned production
• Further review on AM of Tool steel can be done to provide better
ideas with wider scope from the rest of 9 papers collected
References
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tool_steel
• http://www.hudsontoolsteel.com/technical-data/steelH3
• http://www.matweb.com/search/datasheet_print.aspx?matguid=e30
d1d1038164808a85cf7ba6aa87ef7
• https://www.metalsupermarkets.com/how-is-tool-steel-made/
• http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S026412751630170
8
• http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/
S0924013617300195