Investigation of Laser Sintered AlSi10Mg Specimens for Density and Surface Roughness

Abstract

AlSi10Mg is one of the most promising alloys in SLM technology due to its low weight and competitive mechanical properties. It gives a good alternative to the conventional manufacturing systems in terms of design flexibility, cost and production time. But the parts made from laser sintering of powder are bound to have rough surface texture. The present study is focused on investigating the impact of process parameters namely laser power, scan speed, hatch spacing and orientation on density and surface roughness of the specimens sintered on selective laser melting of AlSi10Mg. To characterize the parameters, design of experiments was created using RSM and ANOVA analysis was employed to find the factors affecting the responses. The optimization was carried out in MATLAB using optimization toolbox. As per the study, hatch spacing proved to be the major contributor for influencing both density as well as surface roughness.