Effects on part density for a highly productive manufacturing of WC-Co via laser powder bed fusion

The additive manufacturing of parts made from difficult-to-weld materials through the usage of preheating temperatures of up to Î0 ⤠500 °C is enabled by newest L-PBF machine tools, such as the RenAM 500Q HT from the company RENISHAW PLC, Wottun-under-Edge, UK. This work aims to delevop processing parameters for the dense and crack-free manufacturing of tungsten-carbide cobalt (WC-Co) via this off-the-shelf machine tool. Therefore the laserpower and scanning speed were varied between 80 W ⤠PL ⤠350 W and 140 mm/s ⤠vS ⤠650 mm/s respectively. Furthermore the influence of a continuous and pulsed laser mode was analysed. A focus was set on the identification of parameters that enable a highly productive manufacturing while maintaining a high part density. A parameter set for relative density rel. > 94 % and a buildup rate v = 0.59 mm3/s was developed.