Fatigue and Corrosion Evaluation of L-PBF 316L Stainless Steel Having Undergone a Self-Terminating Etching Process for Surface Finish Improvement.

The poor surface finish of as-printed (AP) laser powder bed fusion (L-PBF) 316L stainless steels has detrimental impacts on the resulting fatigue and corrosion performance. One postprocessing method, a self-terminating etching process (STEP), can improve the surface finish of parts up to 76%, but the resulting effects on fatigue life and corrosion reliability remain unknown. This work evaluates the effect of the STEP on the fatigue and corrosion performance of L-PBF 316L.

Iodine-Based Sensitization of Copper Alloys to Enable Self-Terminating Etching for Support Removal and Surface Improvements of Additively Manufactured Components.

Advances in selective laser melting (SLM) of metals in the past two decades have made metals additive manufacturing more accessible for industrial adoption. Despite printing process improvements, post-processing of SLM components has not improved much, resulting in considerable costs, delay, and design limitations. Building upon recent advances in sensitization-based self-terminating etching processes, this work details a new set iodine-based sensitization and etching chemistries that simplify the post-processing of copper (Cu) alloy components fabricated using SLM.