Porosity Analysis of Additive Manufactured Parts Using CAQ Technology

Components produced by additive technology are implemented in various spheres of industry, such as automotive or aerospace. This manufacturing process can lead to making highly optimized parts. There is not enough information about the quality of the parts produced by additive technologies, especially those made from metal powder. The research in this article deals with the porosity of components produced by additive technologies. The components used for the research were manufactured by the selective laser melting (SLM) method. The shape of these components is the same as the shape used for the tensile test. The investigated parts were printed with orientation in two directions, Z and XZ with respect to the machine platform. The printing strategy was "stripe". The material used for printing of the parts was SS 316L-0407. The printing parameters were laser power of 200 W, scanning speed of 650 mm/s, and the thickness of the layer was 50 µm. A non-destructive method was used for the components' porosity evaluation. The scanning was performed by CT machine METROTOM 1500. The radiation parameters used for getting 3D scans were voltage 180 kV, current 900 µA, detector resolution 1024 × 1024 px, voxel size 119.43 µm, number of projections 1050, and integration time 2000 ms. This entire measurement process responds to the computer aided quality (CAQ) technology. VG studio MAX 3.0 software was used to evaluate the obtained data. The porosity of the parts with Z and XZ orientation was also evaluated for parts' thicknesses of 1, 2, and 3 mm, respectively. It has been proven by this experimental investigation that the printing direction of the part in the additive manufacturing process under question affects its porosity.