A comparison on static and fatigue behaviour between traditional and SLM AISI 316L

Additive manufacturing (AM) is a novel production process, that allows the creation of lightweight and customizable devices. Such capacity requires a high grade of reliability under the action of service loads, especially under fatigue loads. One of the high-performance steels adopted for selective laser melting (SLM) is the AISI 316L. However, SLM is severally affected by laser beam power and scanning velocity. Mechanical properties must be investigated to provide reliability of final products, but this requires a huge amount of time. On the other hand, energy methods, such as the Risitano's thermographic method and the novel static thermographic method, by performing stepwise fatigue tests and static tensile tests, can assess the material's performance by monitoring the energy release. In this work, failure analysis has been performed, showing the differences between the traditional and AM manufacturing process, giving an insight to understand and improve the quality of the AM production process.