Experimental evaluation of selective laser melting process for optimized lattice structures

Lattice structures fabricated with micromelting of metal powders are promising solutions for lightweight applications. Additive manufacturing processes as selective laser melting are largely used to build bulk components, but the influence of laser settings on lattice struts morphology is not jet fully investigated. Previous studies demonstrate the effect of laser speed and layers thickness on the material density and lattice struts dimensions. In this paper, the effects of the laser volume energy density associated with the process setup parameters are analyzed in relation to the dimensional accuracy of lattice struts. The statistical approach based on design of experiments used in this paper allows getting appreciable reduction of the average errors of struts dimensions (from 48% to 16% and from 22% to 7% in horizontal and vertical orientations, respectively).