• Transactions of Materials Processing
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.118-123
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• 2011

Manufacturing of the bipolar plate of a direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) by direct laser melting technology (DLM) was attempted. The DLM technology is highly influenced by process parameters such as laser power, scan rate and layering height. Therefore, an analysis of the DLM technology was performed under various conditions. The bipolar plates were fabricated using the DLM process with 316L stainless steel (STS 316L) plates and powder. Powder melting trials at various energy density were performed in order to select a feasible melting range for a given laser power. The melting line height increases and eventually saturates when the energy density increases, but decreases when the laser power increases at a given energy density. For the estimation of the potential performance of the bipolar plate, the surface roughness and contact resistance of the DLM layer were also analyzed. The changes of line height and thickness are useful information to report when manufacturing bipolar plate of fuel cell through the DLM process.

• Transactions of Materials Processing
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.195-202
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• 2016

Direct laser melting(DLM) is an additive manufacturing process that can produce parts by solidification of molten metallic powder layer by layer. The properties of the fabricated parts strongly depend on characteristics of the metallic powder. Atomized powders having spherical morphology have commonly been used for DLM. Mechanical ball-milling is a powder processing technique that can provide non-spherical solid powders without melting. The aim of the current study was to investigate the effect of powder morphologies on the deposition quality in DLM. To characterize the morphological effect, the performances of spherical and non-spherical powders were compared using both single- and multi-track DLM experiments. DLM experiments were performed with various laser process parameters such as laser power and scan rate, and the deposition quality was evaluated. The surface roughness, cross-section bead shape and process defects such as balling or non-filled area were compared and discussed in this study.

• Transactions of Materials Processing
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.303-310
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• 2014

Functionally graded properties are characterized by the gradual variation in composition and structure through the volume of the material, resulting in corresponding gradation in properties of the material. Direct laser melting (DLM) is a prototyping process whereby a 3-D part is built layer-wise by melting metal powder with laser scanning. Studies have been performed on the functionally graded properties induced by direct laser melting of compositionally selected metallic powders. For the current study, quadrangle structures were fabricated by DLM using Fe-Ni-Cr powders having variable compositions. Hardness and EDX analysis were conducted on cross-sections of the fabricated structure to characterize the properties. From the analysis, it is shown that functionally graded properties can be successfully obtained by DLM of selected metallic powders with varying compositions.

• Transactions of Materials Processing
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• v.20 no.8
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• pp.575-580
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• 2011

Direct laser melting(DLM) is promising as a joining method for producing parts for automobiles, aerospace, marine and medical applications. An advantageous characteristic of DLM is that it affects the parent metal very little. The mechanical properties of parts made by DLM are strongly affected by the porosity and surface roughness of the laser melted beads. This is a systematic study of the effects of the porosity and surface roughness of laser melted beads using various processing parameters, such as laser power, scan rate and overlapping ratio of the fill spacing. The specimens were fabricated with 316L and 304L austenitic stainless steel powder. Dense parts with low porosity were obtained at low laser scan speed, as it increased the aspect ratio of the parental material and the depth of penetration. The variations of surface roughness were examined at various processing parameters such as overlapping ratio and laser power.

• Korean Journal of Metals and Materials
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• v.50 no.2
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• pp.107-115
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• 2012

Direct laser melting (DLM) is a powder-based additive manufacturing process to produce parts by layer-by-layer laser melting. As the properties of the manufactured parts depend strongly on the deposited laser-melted bead, deposited layers obtained by the DLM process were characterized in this study. This investigation used a 200 W fiber laser to produce single-line beads under a variety of different energy distributions. In order to obtain a feasible range for the two main process parameters (i.e. laser power and scan rate), bead shapes of single track deposition were intensively investigated. The effects of the processing parameters, such as powder layer thickness and scan spacing, on geometries of the deposited layers have also been analyzed. As a result, minimum energy criteria that can achieve a complete melting have been suggested at the given powder layer thickness. The surface roughnesses of the deposited beads were strongly dependent on the overlap ratio of adjacent beads and on the energy distributions of laser power. Through microstructural analysis and hardness measurement, the morphological and mechanical properties of the deposited layers at various overlapped beads have also been characterized.

• Transactions of Materials Processing
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.21-26
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• 2019

Direct Laser Melting (DLM) of $Ti-xTiH_2$ (mixing ratio x = 2, 5, 10 wt.%) blended powder is characterized by producing porous titanium parts. When a high energy laser is irradiated on a $Ti-TiH_2$ blended powder, hydrogen gas ($H_2$) is produced by the accompanying decomposition of the $TiH_2$ powder, and acts as a pore-forming and activator. The hydrogen gas trapped in a rapidly solidified molten pool, which generates porosity in the deposited layer. In this study, the effects of a $TiH_2$ mixing ratio and the associated processing parameters on the development of a porous titanium were investigated. It was determined that as the content of $TiH_2$ increases, the resulting porosity density also increases, due to the increase of $H_2$ produced by $TiH_2$. Also, porosity increases as the scan speed increases. As fast solidified melting pools do not provide enough time for $H_2$ to escape, the faster the scan speed, the more the resulting $H_2$ is captured by the process. The results of this study show that the mixing ratio (x) and laser machining parameters can be adjusted to actively generate and control the porosity of the DLM parts.