Manufacturing of thin wall structures in AlSi10Mg alloy by laser powder bed fusion through process parameters

Abstract Laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) process allows to manufacture customized metal porous 3D parts known to have many interesting combinations of physical and mechanical properties. Therefore, the minimum resolution obtainable by this process is of high importance in the design of porous functional parts e.g. thin walls. Knowledge of the relationship between process parameters and material employed is fundamental to obtain these kinds of structures with LPBF. A series of experiments were carried out with a laser-melting system with laser power up to 200 W and a spot of 100 μm to analyze the influence of the manufacturing strategy in the construction of thin walls in AlSi10Mg alloy. The results showed that it is possible to have well defined dense thin walls using appropriate building strategies, providing also useful information for the design rules definition of the LPBF process. The results also showed that the energy density is not able to provide information on the complexity that involves the melt pools formation and propagation. A mathematical model was also developed to build well defined thin walls directly through the process parameters and to reduce the mismatch between as-designed and as-manufactured thin wall structures. The verification of such model was made building thin walls in AlSi10Mg and then comparing them to the as-designed structures.