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PII: S1005-0302(19)30110-0
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmst.2019.04.017
Reference: JMST 1537
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Please cite this article as: Yang J, Wang Y, Li F, Huang W, Jing G, Wang Z, Zeng X,
Weldability, microstructure and mechanical properties of laser-welded selective laser
melted 304 stainless steel joints, Journal of Materials Science and amp; Technology
(2019), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmst.2019.04.017
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Weldability, microstructure and mechanical properties of
laser-welded selective laser melted 304 stainless steel joints
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Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics, Huazhong University
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of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China
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Xi'an Space Engine Factory, Xi'an 710100, China
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*
Corresponding author: Prof., Ph.D.; Tel.: +86 027 87544774; Fax: +86
027 87541423, E-mail address: zmwang@hust.edu.cn (Zemin Wang).
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[Received 18 February 2019; Received in revised form 17 March 2019;
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Accepted 21 March 2019]
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304 stainless steel are joined. Results show that the SLMed
304 stainless steel plates have a good laser weldability. The
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along the building directions of the SLMed base plates can
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induce a slightly finer dendritic structure and higher tensile
properties.
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Keywords: Selective laser melting; Laser welding; 304 stainless
steel; Anisotropy
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1. Introduction
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Among the additive manufacturing technologies, selective laser
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however already become a new and significant trend of SLM under the
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large-scale parts are facing three major challenges. The first one is a
now, the largest commercial SLM equipment has reached up to 800 mm×
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400 mm× 500 mm in building volume (Concept Laser X line 2000R [3]),
which still lags behind the industrial demand. The second one is the
control of defects (pore, crack, spatter and incomplete fusion) [4] and
microstructures (columnar grain, texture and anisotropy) [5,6]. The last one
is the residual stress [7] and dimensional accuracy [8]. The residual stress
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associated with SLM complex heat history is always accompanied by the
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distortion of components and failure of fabrication process. Besides,
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another non-negligible aspect is that the production of large-scale parts by
effective solution for the above issues by joining smaller SLMed parts to
form large-scale final parts without size limit. More recently, a few
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[10–12]
, superalloys [13] and stainless steels [14]. Especially, laser welding has
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of power output, narrow joint with reduced heat affected zone (HAZ),
adaptability [15,16]. Such merits make laser welding more potential for
components quickly and effectively. But, relevant studies are still limited.
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Only Yu et al. [17] and Wits et al. [18] tried to join SLMed to SLMed and
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sharp temperature gradient and rapid solidification rate [19,20]. As the
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different sections of SLMed parts are always needed to be joined in
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practical applications, it is imperative to determine whether the SLMed
parts are required to have large size, high dimensional accuracy and
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performance between the laser-welded joints and SLMed base plates was
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2. Experimental
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2.1. SLM process
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All SLM experiments were conducted using a self-developed SLM
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system (LSNF-П), whose details have been described in our previous
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publication [23]. The starting material was gas-atomized and spherical 304
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were shown in Table 1 and Fig. 1(a), respectively. The D10, D50 and D90
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of the gas atomized 304 stainless steel powders are 18.8 μm, 37.6 μm and
argon environment with oxygen content controlled well below 100 ppm.
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W, scanning speed of 1000 mm/s, hatch spacing of 0.12 mm, and layer
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thickness of 40 μm) based on our previous work [24].
SLMed samples were cut from the substrate and divided into small plates
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discharge machining.
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2.2. Laser welding process
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A 6 kW fiber laser (IPG YLR-6000) was employed with a
lens to get a focused radius of 0.4 mm. The welding material was 3
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Before welding, and all the specimens were brushed to remove surface
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oxidization film by sand blasting treatment. The laser beam was inclined
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reflection. The used shielding gas was argon, flowing out of a paraxial
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building plane (XOZ) and scanning plane (XOY) of SLMed plates were
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laser-welded in type 2.
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2.3. Characterization of microstructure and properties
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After welding, the metallographic samples of the SLMed plates and
welded joints were prepared and etched by a mixture of FeCl3 and HCl
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with etching time of 3 s. The macro- and micro-structures were
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characterized by EPIPHOT300 optical microscope (OM) as well as
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to investigate the grain orientation and grain size of the joint. The total
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radiation with a step size of 0.02° and a dwell time of 1 s per step.
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tensile tests of the welded joints were designed and carried out according
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to GB/T228.1-2010 standard. Moreover, a wrought 304 stainless steel
Also, the electrochemical tests of all the samples were carried out on
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electrochemical measurement and analysis software, was equipped on the
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electrochemical workstation. In the electrochemical measurements, the
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platinum sheet and saturated calomel electrode were selected as counter
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cross-section morphologies of the joints in Fig. 4 reveal typical
observed on the top surface and root of the joints consisting of wide
and wide lower zone (~0.8 mm in width). The concave is about 0.1 mm,
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which can be neglected when big parts were manufacture by SLM plus
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laser welding. The cross-section area of welded joint under type 1 is
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slightly smaller than those under the other two types. Also, the base metal,
laser fusion zone and HAZ can be discriminated clearly in the joints
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without apparent transition zone. No visual defects (pores, cracks,
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spatters and non-fusions) are found in the three joints, demonstrating that
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3.2. Microstructure
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between them. Clearly, γ-Fe and δ-Fe phases are observed in all the
samples. But the diffraction peaks of γ-Fe phase have the higher
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intensities than those of δ-Fe phase, thus a higher content of γ-Fe phase
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relatively strong metallurgical bonding between tracks (Fig. 6(a)). On
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XOY section, a distinctive chessboard pattern structure is observed due to
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the applied hatch angle of 90° (Fig. 6(b)). The average width of square is
cellular dendrites with dendrite arm spacing of ~0.3 μm are within the
columnar grains in Fig. 6(c) and (e). Apparently, the microstructure shows
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process [26].
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samples consist of dominant γ-Fe phase with face centered cubic structure
structure. The joint can be divided into three zones including center zone
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(CZ) in the centerline, fusion zone (FZ) around the centerline, and
epitaxial zone (EZ) at the boundary. In center zones, the columnar grains
tend to be parallel to the joints in Fig. 7(b), (d) and (f), which is called as
axial grains. Only a small part of the trailing pool boundary can be
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the center zone is rather narrow. In fusion zones, the cellular dendritic
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the columnar grains in Fig. 7(a), (c) and (e). Such columnar grains always
the three zones are observed between the laser-welded joints under types
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coarser than those of the SLMed base metal. The dendrite arm spacing of
joints slightly increase from 3.6 to 4.0 μm in center zone (CZ), from 4.6
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to 5.5 μm in fusion zone (FZ), and from 2.3 to 2.7 μm in epitaxial zone
(EZ), as the welding type changes from type 1 to type 3. Therefore, the
texture in the laser-welded joint. The columnar grains in the joint always
grow along the direction of heat flow. Also, the columnar grains with
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grain size mainly in the range of 8-100 μm are seen in the joint, showing
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the average grain size is 24.5 μm (Fig. 8(b)). Additionally, only γ-Fe
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phase was identified in the EBSD phase mapping of the laser-welded
and cooling rate (Ṫ, K/s) at solidification temperatures has been reported
to obey the following equation for the typical austenitic stainless steel
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[28,29]
:
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DAS=80Ṫ0.33 (1)
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welding and SLM process are calculated from the measured dendrite arm
spacing based on Eq. (1) in Table 3. The calculated cooling rates under
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laser welding and SLM process are the level of 103-4 K/s and 107 K/s,
magnitude lower than that in SLM process. The dendrite arm spacing is
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different at various locations of laser-welded joints, i.e. epitaxial zone
(~2.5 μm) < center zone (~3.7 μm) < fusion zone (~5.0 μm). Such
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dendrite arm spacing, while the dendrite arm spacing is largest for FZ
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under the minimum cooling rate in the laser-welded joints.
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Thus, the dendrite structure of the SLMed base metal is obviously
larger-spot (400 μm) and slower-speed (33.3 mm/s) laser can promote the
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microhardness of SLMed base metal (~300 HV) is 1.36 times higher than
that of laser fusion zones (~220 HV) because of their finer grain size in
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SLMed plates. Besides, no obvious differences in microhardness are
SLMed 304 stainless steel samples and their laser-welded joints under
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MPa, 220 MPa, and 50% [24]), a higher strength value but a lower
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reduction of area is obtained in the laser-welded joints. Also, the tensile
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and yield strengths (824 and 729 MPa) of the horizontally SLMed
samples (SLM-H) are higher than those (761 and 512 MPa) of the
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vertically ones (SLM-V), which are superior to their wrought counterpart.
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On the other hand, the reduction in area (45.1%) of the horizontally
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SLMed samples are lower than those (62.5%) of the vertically ones.
and vertical directions in the SLMed 304 stainless steel samples because
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decrease trend in tensile strength of joints are found from (777 MPa) in
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type 1, to (735 MPa) in type 2, and to (722 MPa) in type 3. The thermal
of SLM. Also, a high thermal conductivity can enhance the heat exchange
rate, resulting in a more rapid cooling rate during welding. Hence, there is
a downtrend in cooling rate under the three welding types, i.e. type 1>
type 2> type 3 (Table 3). That may be the reason why the dendrite arm
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spacing of joints shows an uptrend and the tensile strength shows a
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downtrend as the welding type changes from type 1 to type 3. Expectedly,
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the tensile properties of SLMed 304 stainless steel is superior to those of
selected during the corrosion test. Hence, Tafel plots and potentiodynamic
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curves in 3.5 wt% NaCl solution of all the samples are given in Fig. 12 to
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potential (Ecorr, V), corrosion current density (icorr, A/cm2), corrosion rate
(v, mm/a), and pitting potential (Ep, V), which are determined through
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Tafel plots and potentiodynamic curves (Fig. 12).
corrosion current density (as high as 1.6 μA/cm2), while the corrosion
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current densities of the laser-welded joints (~0.7 μA/cm2) are comparable
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to that of the wrought sample (~0.6 μA/cm2). Based on Faraday′s law [32]:
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v=3272 (mm/(cm a))×ω×icorr/ρ (2)
results in Fig. 13(b), the laser-welded joints and wrought sample are very
stable (103–2 mm/a), but the SLMed ones are stable (102–1 mm/year) in the
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3.5 wt% NaCl solution. Besides, the pitting potential of the SLMed base
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wrought counterpart [33], and superior to the SLMed base plate. The
composed of γ-Fe phase based on the results above. So, grain size of γ-Fe
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phase acts a significant role in determining the corrosion resistance of the
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the laser-welded joints may be attributed to their less grain boundaries
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associated with larger grain size. It is also worth mentioning that the
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SLMed anisotropy shows a negligible effect on the corrosion resistance in
and corrosion resistance of the SLMed 304 stainless steel and their
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(1) The stress-relieved SLMed 304 stainless steel shows a good laser
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austenite matrix within the columnar grains. The order of dendrite arm
μm) < center zone (~3.7 μm) < fusion zone (~5.0 μm) under the effect of
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decreasing cooling rates.
(2) As compared with the SLMed based metal, the joints exhibit a
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(3) SLMed anisotropy acts a negligible role in determining the
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microstructure and mechanical properties in the laser-welded joints. As
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the welding type changes from type 1 to type 3, the dendrite arm spacing
of joints slight increases from 3.6 to 4.0 μm in center zone, from 4.6 to
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5.5 μm in fusion zone, and from 2.3 to 2.7 μm in epitaxial zone, as well
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as the tensile and yield strengths of joints slight decrease. The laser
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welding along the building directions of the SLMed base plates can
Acknowledgements
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Special thanks for the Analytical and Testing Center of HUST.
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Figure and table captions
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Fig. 1. Morphology of metal powders (a) and macro-morphology of
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Fig. 3. Surface morphologies of laser-welded joints under types 1 (a, b), 2
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(c, d) and 3 (e, f) in front (a, c, e) and back (b, d, f) views.
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(c).
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Fig. 6. Three-dimensional optical microscopy composite view (a) and
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microstructures of stress-relieved SLMed 304 stainless steel on XOY (b,
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Fig. 8. EBSD IPF figure (a) and grain size distribution (b) of laser-welded
joint.
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Fig. 9. Microhardness of laser-welded joints under three types.
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Fig. 10. Tensile properties of 304 stainless steel samples under various
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processes.
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Fig. 11. Photos of tensile test samples after tensile tests (a) and OM
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image showing fracture path of laser-welded joint under type 2 (b).
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Fig. 12. Tafel plots (a) and potentiodynamic curves (b) of 304 stainless
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Fig. 13. Corrosion potential and corrosion current density (a), corrosion
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rate (b), and pitting potential (c) of 304 stainless steel samples in 3.5 wt%
NaCl solution.
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Table list:
C Cr Ni Mo Mn Si P S Fe
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Table 2 Parameters of laser welding.
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Table 3 Dendrite arm spacing and calculated cooling rate of SLMed
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(CZ)
Type 3 4.0 0.8×104
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Type 1 4.6 5.7×103
Fusion zone
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Type 2 4.9 4.7×103
(FZ)
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Type 3 5.5 3.7×103
Type 1 2.3 4.7×104
Epitaxial zone
(EZ)
Type 2 2.7
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Type 3 2.7 2.9×104
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Base metal - 0.3 ~2.6×107
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