Material characterization of surface and anisotropic properties

The mechanical properties of AM components will be dependent of the building orientation. There are several different reasons for this but the main source of anisotropy comes from; (1) non-random grain orientation due columnar grain growth during the building process, (2) the impact of the high surface roughness for thin structures elongated in one direction, (3) non-random orientation or clustering of defects along a certain direction caused by either lack of fusion or hot cracking between columnar grains during solidification and cooling. Mechanical testing will be will be performed on samples with different geometries, processing histories and orientations. The results will be analyzed and reported.