The Effects of Laser Surface Texturing Parameters on the Surface Characteristics of Biomedical-Grade Stainless Steel

This study used surface roughness and wettability tests to evaluate the texture created by laser processing parameters on the AISI 316LVM metal surface. On the metal surface, the texture was created using a nanosecond fiber laser according to the experiment series consisting of different levels of six different process parameters. The effect of the surface roughness of the processed texture and the laser texturing parameters on the wettability was associated with the contact angle. It has been determined that the movement of the laser beam during texture creation, i.e., the angle at which the laser beam moves on the defined geometry during texturing, significantly affected the changes in the wettability behavior of the surfaces. It was revealed that the surface roughness alone did not affect the wettability. The hatching strategy and the overlap ratios affected the surface roughness of the textured surface. It was revealed that surface wettability was affected by surface topography and roughness, which varied according to laser surface texturing parameters. The texture (E16), formed with the laser texturing parameters of 70% power, 1000 mm/s scan speed, 100 kHz frequency, 0.03 mm line spacing, and 75 ns pulse width, exhibited hydrophobic behavior with a contact angle of 114.5 degrees and surface roughness (Sa) of 1.45 mu m. E4, E6, E9, E11, E15, E17, and E18 surfaces exhibited a superhydrophilic behavior.

Automated summary

This study used surface roughness and wettability tests to evaluate the texture created on the AISI 316LVM metal surface by different laser processing parameters. The movement of the laser beam during texture creation significantly affected the wettability behavior. Surface roughness alone did not affect the wettability, but the hatching strategy and overlap ratios did affect the surface roughness.