Crystallographic Texture and Substructural Phenomena in 316 Stainless Steel Printed by Selective Laser Melting.

There is a fast-growing interest in the use of selective laser melting (SLM) for metal/alloy additive manufacturing. Our current knowledge of SLM-printed 316 stainless steel (SS316) is limited and sometimes appears sporadic, presumably due to the complex interdependent effects of a large number of process variables of the SLM processing. This is reflected in the discrepant findings in the crystallographic textures and microstructures in this investigation compared to those reported in the literature, which also vary among themselves.