Manufacturing Technology Today

A. Venkata Ramana ¹, Vijaya Singh ¹, Sriram Venkatesh ²

Affiliations
1 Light Alloys Casting Group, Defence Metallurgical Research Laboratory, Hyderabad, IN
2 Department of Mechanical Engineering, Osmania University, Hyderabad, IN

Abstract

In this article a freeform fabrication process based on laser melting of metal powders called Laser Engineered Net Shaping (LENS^TM) is discussed. Paper describes general features of the process and results of the experiments carried out to deposit stainless steel (SS316) test coupons. Finally the deposits have been characterized for their surface quality, hardness, tensile properties and microstructure, and efforts made to correlate them with specific power of the laser.

Keywords

Laser Melting, Layer Manufacturing, LENS Technology, Rapid Prototyping, Rapid Tooling.

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