Tribological properties of Laser Powder Bed Fused AlSi10Mg: Experimental study and statistical analysis

This study deals with the experimental analysis of the tribological properties of AlSi10Mg alloy components manufactured by Laser Powder Bed Fusion (LPBF). The influence of the LPBF parameters and building orientation was investigated for density, roughness, hardness, and wearing properties, as weight loss, wear volume, and friction coefficient. The tribological characterization was carried out by means of Ball on Plate Tests, using both 100Cr6 steel and alumina balls as counterpart. Then, the Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) allowed to verify the significance of process parameters, counterpart material and test area. The experimental results highlight the anisotropic effect of the process parameters on the performance of the manufactured samples for all the response variables. Tribological tests performed with steel ball showed an adhesive wear phenomenon, while the alumina ball an adhesive one. No remarkable differences were detected for varying the test area along the building direction. Finally, the analysis of the wear tests at increasing distance showed a progressive increase in the friction coefficient and a corresponding reduction in the wear rate for both counterpart materials.