| Additive manufacturing, also known as 3D printing, is a technology which has recently seen expanding use, as well as expansion of the materials and methods able to be used. This thesis looks at the comparison of mechanical properties of 316L stainless steel manufactured by both traditional methods and selective laser melting found by tensile testing. The traditional method used here involved cold rolled 316L steel being machined to the desired part geometry. Selective laser melting used additive manufacturing to produce the parts from powdered 316L stainless steel, doing so in two different build orientations, flat and on edge with regards to the build plate. Solid test specimens, as well as specimens containing a circular stress concentration in the center of the parts, were manufactured and tensile tested. The tensile tests of the specimens were used to find the mechanical properties of the material; including yield strength, ultimate tensile strength (UTS), and Young's modulus of elasticity; where statistical analyses were performed to determine if the different manufacturing processes caused significant differences in the mechanical properties of the material. These analysis consisting of f-tests, to test for variance, and t-test, testing for significant difference of means. Through this study it was found that there were statistically significant differences existing between the mechanical properties of selective laser melting, and its orientations, and cold roll forming of production of parts. Even with a statistical difference, it was found that the results were reasonably close between flat oriented SLM parts and purchased parts. So it can be concluded that, with regards to strength, SLM methods produce parts similar to traditional production methods. |
