Influence of the shielding gas in laser metal deposition of AISI 316L

Shielding gases are a must in metal additive manufacturing. Consequently, their influence on the materials employed in technologies such as laser metal deposition has awakened the interest of the scientific community since the early 00’s. The yearly amount of indexed publications in this subject has been stable in the last decade but is expected to grow steadily powered by the progressive implementation of industrial scale additive manufacturing facilities. This work contributes to the field by sharing the research on the effect of the shielding gases on the laser metal deposition of AISI 316L stainless steel. More specially, a study on the effect of Argon and Nitrogen as shielding gases under specific laser cladding conditions is presented. The results show that the gas is part of a complex technological set variables where the support of Application Engineers is a key factor in the final outcome.