Additive Manufacturing (AM) offers an enormous potential to produce complex and highly loaded components. However, in relation to conventionally made parts, additively manufactured structures exhibit a high number of process-induced defects, e.g., pores, as well as a high surface roughness, which lead to microstructural or rather geometrical notch effects. Moreover, these defects result in a significant reduction of the material’s fatigue life.

Together with the Institute for Mechanical and Automotive Design (iMAD) we are investigating the influence of the parameters used in the Laser-based Powder Bed Fusion (L-PBF) process on the fatigue behavior of AlSi10Mg specimens. Besides the process-induced porosity and surface topography, we are analyzing the resulting properties of the material’s volume, i.e., its defect tolerance. Because we expect that an increased defect tolerance leads to higher fatigue strength, caused by the inevitability of process-induced notches, we want to identify a condition that has a combination of low porosity and surface topography as well as a high defect tolerance.