Tribological Performance of Textured 316L Stainless Steel Prepared by Selective Laser Melting

Selective laser melting (SLM) is a rapid prototyping additive manufacturing technology that has been widely utilized in the biomedical field. Surface texturing is an effective surface treatment used to improve tribological performance. In this work, both SLM and surface texturing were applied to prepare textured 316L stainless steel (SS) samples with different parameters. The tribological performance of the SLM-prepared textured 316L SS under dry and phosphate buffer solution (PBS)-lubricated friction conditions was investigated. The results show that the circular textured sample has the smallest percentage reduction in texture characteristic size and hence has a larger volume to store more wear debris generated during the friction process. Moreover, reducing the texture area ratio and characteristic size increase the friction coefficient of the 316L SS textured samples under the two friction conditions. The friction coefficient and wear loss of the textured samples are larger than those of the untextured sample under dry friction conditions. Under the PBS-lubricated friction conditions, the friction coefficient and wear loss of the textured samples decrease significantly compared to the untextured sample, except for the wear loss of textured samples prepared with a small characteristic size. Simultaneously, the triangular textured sample has better wear resistance than the circular textured samples. Therefore, 316L SS textured samples prepared by SLM technology can achieve stable friction and less wear loss under simulated body fluid conditions by selecting reasonable texturing parameters.

Automated summary

Selective laser melting (SLM) and surface texturing were used to prepare textured 316L stainless steel (SS) samples with different parameters. The tribological performance of the SLM-prepared textured 316L SS under different friction conditions was investigated. The results showed that the texture characteristics, such as size and shape, had a significant impact on the friction coefficient and wear loss.