Analysis on the consequence of defect formation during the melt pool creation in the DMLS AlSi10Mg parts: Additive ratio ASsessment (ARAS) and experimental study

Additive manufacturing (AM) of metals enables the production of near-net shape components from a wide range of materials. To utilize the potential of this technology a correlation between process parameters and material properties should be established. In this research, AlSi10Mg parts were fabricated by Direct Metal Laser Sintering (DMLS) technique and also aims to characterize the effect of key process parameters namely laser power, exposure time, and overlap ratio based on the hardness, relative density, and surface roughness of the printed samples. To establish a systematic procedure to identify the optimum process parameters for achieving the desirable response target values, a combined methodology based on Additive Ratio ASsessment (ARAS) and desirability function approach was used. The outcome provides a reliable method to determine the optimum values for any process parameters according to the target responses. Furthermore, the effect of process parameter variation on the hardness, relative density, and surface roughness of DMLS AlSi10Mg were experimentally substantiated with the help of SEM and EDS results. The optimal combination was identified with 320 W laser power, 50 % over lapping rate and 120 µs exposure time which results in maximum hardness and relative density of 110vHN and 99.83 % and minimum surface roughness of about 8.12 µm and also confirmed that the optimized results from ARAS are greater concurrence with the desirability function approach.