Investigation of the Mechanical Properties of Additively Manufactured Metal Parts with Different Relative Densities

Currently, metal additive manufacturing (MAM) has been receiving more attention in many sectors for its production of metal parts because MAM effortlessly enables the fabrication of complex metal parts and provides faster and more sustainable manufacturing than conventional processes. Recently, a MAM-using bound metal deposition (BMD) has been proposed as a user-friendly manufacturing method that can provide low-volume production, economical metal parts, and operation safety. Since the BMD technique is new, information on the mechanical properties of MAM parts using this technique has not been sufficiently provided. This paper aims to study the mechanical properties of MAM parts manufactured by the BMD technique, examining the elastic modulus, yield strength, ultimate strength, and fatigue behavior of the parts with different relative densities. The MAM parts made from 316L and 17-4PH stainless steel were investigated using tensile and fatigue tests. Some mechanical properties of the infill parts in this study were validated with formulas from the literature. The weight efficiency is used as an index to assess the efficiency of the infill parts with different densities by examining the relationship between the mechanical properties and the weight of the MAM parts. The experimental results and a discussion of the weight efficiency assessment are presented as a novel information report on MAM products fabricated by BMD technology.