Effects of different mechanical and chemical surface post-treatments on mechanical and surface properties of as-built laser powder bed fusion AlSi10Mg

Laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) materials have various surface defects, which can detrimentally affect the mechanical properties and fatigue behavior of these materials. Surface post-processing can be crucial to reduce or eliminate these surface imperfections. In this study, the effects of different post-processing methods including shot peening, ultrasonic nanocrystalline surface modification and severe vibratory peening as well as electro-chemical polishing and other hybrid treatments obtained from their combination were surveyed on microstructure, surface and mechanical properties of LPBF AlSi10Mg specimens. Two different processes with varying levels of kinetic energy were considered for each mechanical surface treatment. The results indicate that mechanical treatments can effectively modify the surface morphology, improve surface hardness and induce compressive residual stresses. In addition, electro-chemical polishing was highly efficient in surface roughness reduction and increasing the wettability of the hybrid mechanically and chemically treated specimens. •UNSM had the highest effect on in-depth surface layer grain refinement.•SVP was the most effective process for inducing compressive residual stresses.•ECP considerably decreased the surface roughness compared to the other treatments.