Surface roughness dependant factors in metal powder bed fusion processes

Powder bed fusion (PBF) is a promising Additive Manufacturing technology that allows to manufacture very complex parts. However, not all the parts distributed in the platform, despite having the same geometry, have the same surface roughness. There are different parameters that could affect the surface roughness. In order to study these parameters, two different platforms were designed and analyzed with a Surface Roughness Tester. The results show which parameters affected principally the surface roughness, and these results suggest a dependency of surface roughness on the part position in the build chamber. Based on this study, the effect of the laser beam incidence angle hypothesis is presented in this paper. Roughness, Selective Laser Melting, laser beam, incidence angle, downskin