Determination of Optimal Process Parameters for L-PBF Produced 1.2709 Alloy

For L-PBF (Laser Powder Bed Fusion) metal additive manufacturing (AM) the choice of available materials is still limited. 1.2709 maraging steel powders are widely used for injection molds and high-quality engineering parts. The quality of the parts produced by L-PBF are significantly affected by the process parameters. The aim of this research was to find optimal process parameters for producing 1.2709 tool steel at a layer thickness of 20 µm and to reveal the possible parameter settings yielding comparable build quality as the “EOS surface” parameter set at a layer thickness of 20 µm. Findings showed that too low or too high input energies produce improper parts. A large range of parameters produce good quality parts, of which the optimum parameters can be chosen.