An investigation of the effect of laser deposition parameters on characteristics of multilayered 316 L deposits

A potential problem in applying the direct laser deposition (DLD) technique to material fabrication is the effect that subsequent deposited layers have on reheating previous laser deposition layers. Most of the previous investigations examined the effect of the laser deposition parameters on the microstructure and mechanical properties of a single layer. This work focused on the effect of the laser parameters of subsequent layers on the microstructure and mechanical properties of the deposited layers to select proper parameters and characterize the effect. The microstructure morphology and property values are affected by the varied parameters. This leads to some tempering and aging effects in the steels. The microstructure of the top layer was equiaxed, while the near substrate region was fine dendritic. Typically, both of the travel speed and power of the laser show the significant effects on microstructure and hardness.