Permeability Study of Austenitic Stainless Steel Surfaces Produced by Selective Laser Melting

Selective laser melting (SLM) is emerging as a versatile process for fabricating different metal components with acceptable mechanical properties and geometrical accuracy. The process has been used in the manufacturing of several parts (e.g., aerospace or biomedical components), and offers the capability to tailor the performance of several surface and mechanical properties. In this work, permeability properties and surface roughness of stainless steel (SS316L) surfaces were evaluated through experimentation with three different laser scanning patterns (chessboard, meander, and stripe), and different sloping angles between the fabricated surface and the laser beam incident on the process. Results showed that for each scanning pattern, the roughness decreased as the sloping angle increased consistently in all experimental trials. Furthermore, in the case of the permeability evaluation, the manufactured surfaces showed changes in properties for each series of experiments performed with different scanning patterns. The chessboard pattern showed a change of 67 degrees to 107 degrees in contact angle, while the meander and stripe patterns showed a variation in contact angle in a range of 65 degrees to 85 degrees. The different scanning strategies in the SLM process resulted in an alternative method for surface enhancement with different hydrophobicity properties, valuable for designing the most appropriate permeability characteristics for specific applications.