Microstructures of Powders and Additively Manufactured Objects of an Alloy Tool Steel for Cold-Work Dies

냉간금형용 합금공구강 분말 및 적층조형체의 미세조직

A cold-work tool steel powder is used to fabricate 3-dimensional objects by selective laser melting using a high-pressure gas atomization process. The spherical powder particles form continuous carbide networks among the austenite matrix and its decomposition products. The carbides comprise Nb-rich MC and Mo-rich $M_2C$. In the SLM process, the process parameters such as the laser power (90 W), layer thickness ($25{\mu}m$), and hatch spacing ($80{\mu}m$) are kept fixed, while the scan speed is changed from 50 mm/s to 4000 mm/s. At a low scan speed of 50 mm/s, spherical cavities develop due to over melting, while they are substantially reduced on increasing the speed to 2000 mm/s. The carbide network spacing decreases with increasing speed. At an excessively high speed of 4000 mm/s, long and irregularly shaped cavities are developed due to incomplete melting. The influence of the scan pattern is examined, for which $1{\times}1 mm^2$ blocks constituting a processing layer are irradiated in a random sequence. This island-type pattern exhibits the same effect as that of a low scan speed. Post processing of an object using hot isostatic pressing leads to a great reduction in the porosity but causes coarsening of the microstructure.