From pulsed to continuous wave emission in SLM with contemporary fiber laser sources: effect of temporal and spatial pulse overlap in part quality

In this work, the effect of pulse temporal and spatial overlapping is evaluated in selective laser melting (SLM). An SLM system operating with fiber laser in pulsed wave (PW) emission was employed. The test material was 18Ni300 maraging steel, which shows reduced process stability due to a high amount of vapour and spark generation during the process. The pulsation characteristics of contemporary power-modulated fiber lasers compared to previously employed Q-switched Nd:YAG systems are explained. Processing conditions are studied moving towards continuous wave (CW) by increasing the duty cycle with fixed fluence. The key quality aspects, namely part density and dimensional error, were evaluated and the robustness was assessed. The results demonstrate that with a limited amount of increase in duty cycle by 3%, part density can be improved, while the dimensional error increases. The results show that CW is preferable when fully dense large parts have to be obtained. On the other hand, operating in PW is convenient when thin struts as in lattice structure or micro and precise features are required.