Microstructural anisotropy in Electron Beam Melted 316L stainless steels

In recent years electron beam melting has been explored to establish its suitability for product manufacturing as this additive manufacturing route offers advantages which are not achieved in other similar processes. This paper focusses on the prime issues associated with 316L manufactured using electron beam melting. Location dependent microstructure and strain accumulation is found to be completely different at central and peripheral regions in a particular layer. Coarser grains as well as lesser amount of strain value is observed at central region when compared to periphery. Crystallographic texture at centre is seen as intensified parallel to build direction whereas it is weak and relatively scattered ( and both) for periphery. BD parallel plane gives a glimpse of available energy as well as repeated thermal cycling as long elongated grains were observed and lowest strained region, depicting the high anisotropic structure altogether.