Influence of wall thickness on the hardness of AlSi10Mg alloy parts manufactured by selective laser melting

The most broadly used powder bed fusion (PBF) technique is Selective laser melting (SLM), which is mainly employed for the fabrication of thin-walled, lightweight structures of aluminum alloys, titanium alloys, steel alloys, etc. Currently, fully dense manufacturing of thin-walled structures with good strength is significant. In this paper, thin-walled test specimens were fabricated by using the optimal processing parameters with varying wall thickness. The goal of the paper is to study the effect of wall thickness on the hardness of the thin-walled specimens. It is concluded that wall thickness has a significant effect on the hardness of the product. The maximum hardness of 137.3 HV is obtained for a wall thickness of 5.0 mm and the minimum hardness of 102.4 HV for 1.0 mm wall thickness specimen.