Fracture Toughness Behaviour of 316L Stainless Steel Samples Manufactured Through Selective Laser Melting

Selective laser melting (SLM) is a relatively new manufacturing technique which offers many benefits. However the utilisation of SLM manufactured components depends on the assurance of their integrity during operation. Fracture toughness testing (J_IC) has been performed on as-built compact tension fracture mechanics samples manufactured in three orthogonal directions. When the crack growth plane was transverse to the interface of the build layers, the fracture toughness values were found to be similar to those manufactured using conventional techniques. However, the fracture toughness is significantly reduced when the crack plane is parallel to the interface of the build layers. Simple heat treatments have been performed on Charpy fracture samples and the resulting impact energy values indicate that the fracture toughness of a component may be improved by heat treatment.