Direct Selective Laser Sintering of Tool Steel Powders to High Density

摘要

Water and Gas Atomised M2 High Speed Steel powders of differing size fractions have been processed by Selective Laser Sintering (SLS) using both (CW) CO_2 and CW and pulsed Nd: YAG lasers under a variety of laser powder and scan conditions to give single layers and multi-layer blocks. Gas atomised powders are more amenable to the SLS process than water atomised Maximum density of multi-layer blocks was only 67% relative, attained using pulsed Nd:YAG laser processing of gas atomised powders. Post-processing using a high temperature vacuum heat treatment broke down eutectic carbide networks, replacing them with distributions of discrete, blocky carbides. The results indicate that the M2 composition is not suitable for processing via SLS