TY - CONF A1 - Suárez Ocano, Patricia A1 - Ávila Calderón, Luis A. A1 - Rehmer, Birgit A1 - Mohr, Gunther A1 - Evans, Alexander A1 - Skrotzki, Birgit T1 - Effect of heat treatment on the hierarchical microstructure and properties of 316L stainless steel produced by Laser Powder Bed Fusion (PBF-LB/M). N2 - Laser Powder Bed Fusion (PBF-LB/M) of AISI 316L stainless steel has gained popularity due to its exceptional capacity to produce complex geometries and hierarchical microstructures, which can increase the yield strength while maintaining good ductility. Nevertheless, owing to high thermal gradients encountered during the process, the as printed 316L stainless steel often exhibit microstructural heterogeneities and residual stresses, which can limit its performance in demanding environments. Hence, employing heat treatments which balance the reduction of residual stresses while retaining improved static strength may be beneficial in various scenarios and applications. This study investigates the impact of post-processing heat treatments on the microstructure of 316L stainless steel manufactured via PBF-LB/M, along with its correlation with micro-hardness properties. To this end, 6 different heat treatments, i.e., 450 °C for 4h, 700 °C for 1h, 700 °C for 3h, 800 °C for 1h, 800 °C for 3h, and 900 °C for 1h, were applied to different specimens and Vickers hardness measurements (HV1) were performed in all states. At 800 °C, although the cellular structure appears to be retained, there is an observable increase in cellular size. However, while treatments exceeding 900 °C indicate no significant grain growth compared to other conditions, the cellular structure is entirely dissolved, which leads to a reduced Vickers hardness. The effect of the heat treatments on other microstructural features such as grain size and morphology, melt pool boundaries (MPB), crystallographic texture, chemical segregation, dispersoids and phase stability are also discussed in the present work T2 - 4th Symposium on Materials and Additive Manufacturing CY - Berlin, Germany DA - 12.06.2024 KW - Additive manufacturing KW - Heat treatment KW - Microstructure PY - 2024 AN - OPUS4-60304 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -