Additive manufacturing of TiC-based cermets: A detailed comparison with spark plasma sintered samples

The present work is a comparative study on the TiC-430 L ferritic stainless steel (FSS) cermets manufactured via two powder metallurgical processes, namely, conventional spark plasma sintering (SPS) and metal additive manufacturing (AM) process (laser powder-bed fusion process (LPBF)/selective laser melting (SLM)). The rescanning strategy has been used to preheat and melt the powder bed with different laser parameters during the SLM process to suppress the presence of residual thermal stress leading to the fabrication of cermets without cracks. The as-fabricated SPS samples (95 %) show a relatively lower density than the SLM-built parts (~98 %). A study of their mechanical properties such as hardness, compressive strength, and fracture toughness was conducted and discussed in detail. Further, the corrosion behavior of the fabricated cermets parts was evaluated in 3.5 wt% NaCl. The SLM-prepared specimens reveal finer microstructures and better mechanical properties (compressive strength and fracture toughness) due to the presence of fine microstructure. Furthermore, the corrosion current density of TiC-430 L fss-based cermets fabricated by SLM is approximately 270 times lower than that of cermets parts fabricated by SPS, indicating excellent corrosion resistance. On the other hand, the hardness shows an opposite trend, where the SPS samples show the maximum hardness as compared to the SLM counterparts due to the presence of hard and coarse TiC particles along with some metallic carbides formed during the SPS process. The results reveal that AM processes not only can fabricate cermets with intricate shapes but can also fabricate them with improved mechanical and corrosion properties.