Abstract Additive manufacturing is becoming increasingly prominent in medical technology thanks to the continuous improvement in manufacturing quality. However, the special solidification conditions of additively manufactured stainless steel (316L) result in an inhomogeneous microstructure. This microstructure is not suitable for stents, but can be homogenized by annealing. Temperatures ranging from 1000 °C to 1200 °C and holding times of 30, 60, and 180 minutes were tested. Microstructural changes were examined using a light and scanning electron microscope (SEM) and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) for metallographic analysis. This enabled a suitable heat treatment to be identified that can be used to match the microstructure of additively manufactured stents to that of conventionally manufactured stents.
Lulla et al. (Thu,) studied this question.