LAUSR

Abstract The aim of this work is to present the quantitative evaluation of the Additive Manufacturing (AM) laser powder bed fusion ( L -PBF) process steps and validation of the FE (Finite Elements) simulation results using the X-ray Computed Tomography (XCT) based approach. The characterization of the production process was made using standard methods, including: laser light diffraction, optical and scanning electron microscopy, hardness examinations, and the investigation of mechanical properties. The XCT method was used to conduct the quality of powder feedstock, the influence of the L -PBF build strategy on the samples’ porosity, and also to evaluate a quantitative analysis of damage behavior before and after ex-situ mechanical testing. The porosity recorded for the powder feedstock was 0.2% and for test samples did not exceed 0.02%. The majority of the observed pores are aligned in patterns connected with the scanning strategy and were arranged in lines appearing along the borders between adjacent stripes. It was observed that increasing the resolution of the XCT scanning significantly influenced the mapping of the shape of pores and – to a lesser extent – the recorded porosity. The comparison of geometry deviations after numerical simulation and tensile test for FE models obtained with different XCT resolutions allowed to show differences in the geometry of experimentally and numerically damaged test samples.