Research on 316 stainless steel low-power pulsed laser-induced arc additive manufacturing by different deposition routes

In this paper, a low-power pulsed laser-induced arc heat source is used to complete the wire-filled additive manufacturing of multi-layer multi-pass stainless steel walls. The low-power pulsed laser can induce and compress the arc to achieve the concentration of arc energy. This paper systematically studied the effects of different deposition paths on the microstructure and mechanical properties. The results show that the parallel deposition mainly consists of columnar grains, and the grain size of the fine grain area is about 10 μm. The longitudinal tensile strength of the parallel part can reach 620 Mpa, and that elongation is 46%. The horizontal tensile strength is 590 MPa and the elongation is only 40%. The alternating deposition part is mainly composed of oriented dendrites, and the grain size of the fine crystal area is about 12 μm. While the average tensile strength of the alternate part is 585 MPa, the average elongation is 38%. The parallel deposition part has better anisotropy, and the isotropy of the alternate deposited part is better. A parallel deposition path is recommended to choose if the component is required to serve under the unidirectional stress state. An alternate deposition path should be adopted if the component is required to serve under the multidirectional stress state.