In-situ residual stress relaxation studies of Laser Beam Melted (LBM) AISI 316L

Additive manufacturing, otherwise know as 3D printing is gaining in industrial relevance as a manufacturing technique partially due to the ability to fabricate complex geometries. Laser Beam Melting is one of the techniques used for additve manufacture of metallic components. The laser locally melts a bed of powder material generating high temperature gradients which can generate high residual or "locked-in" stresses. These residual stresses are usually reduced through heat treatments which minimise the risk of distorsion and detelerious influences on fatigue behaviour. Building on previous experiments and scheduled work on ENGIN-X, the aim is to characterise in-situ the decrease of residual stresses with time and temperature to understand the underlying mechanisms of stress relaxation in LBM AISI 316L.