The utilization of 316L stainless steel has been very common in marine, automotive, architectural, and biomedical applications due to its adequate corrosion resistance to cracks after the completion of welding process. However, there has been ongoing attempts to investigate the potential enhancement in the strength and durability of 316L stainless steel by reinforcing it with silicon carbide (SiC). The present work adopts the selective laser melting (SLM) technique to fabricate SiC-reinforced 316L steel to boost its microhardness and strength properties. The methodology involved the addition of 1% wt. silicon carbide with particle sizes <40 μm to reinforce the stainless steel matrix. An SLM metal printing machine equipped with a continuous wave of 300 W fiber laser is employed to form the specimens. To measure the properties of the final product, EDX, XRD, FESEM, and universal tensile test machines have been used. The maximum value of 296 HV was obtained for a 1% volume of SiC compared to the 285 HV microhardness of pure stainless steel 316L. FESEM examination showed that the SiC microparticles were dissolved completely and they were randomly distributed in the melting basin. The samples were dissolved entirely, and the best porosity was obtained at 0.4% with influential parameters of 200 W laser power, 70 µm hatching distance, 30 µm layer thickness, and 700 mm/s velocities. The results also revealed that the microhardness at these parameters is the best compared to the samples produced with different values. The volumetric energy density was also considered. The findings can be informative to the researchers and manufacturers interested in 316L steel industry.

The paper describes the impact of selective laser melting factors including using a nanosecond fibre laser, including laser powers, scanning speed, and thickness of layer, on the relative density and micro hardness Vickers of IN 601 samples was studied. Selective laser melting (SLM) is a commonly used powder bed fusion metal additive manufacturing (AM). Recent advances in additive manufacturing have attracted significant industrial interest, especially for producing metallic parts. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), EDX and other techniques were utilized for studying the effect of speed of scanning and power of laser on densification behaviour, microstructural evolution and micro hardness of Inconel v alloy that was processed by SLM. With a VED of 3200 J/mm 3 , a scan speed of 250 mm/s with a 80 W, micro cracks of about 79-93 µm and voids of about (4.5 µm -5.7) µm in diameter were realised. Moreover, the best hardness of 394 HV was attained with 80 W laser power. However, increasing the energy to more than the required values increased the porosity and decreased hardness. Using microsecond laser in SLM leads to the achievement of full density (almost 99.5%), whereas using nanosecond laser allows the achievement of less density (75-95%), which will be very useful for functions that require a porous structure and less weight, such as those in the aerospace applications, automotive industry and so on.