High cycle fatigue behaviour of Invar 36 alloy fabricated by laser powder bed fusion

The Invar 36 alloy was additively manufactured by laser powder bed fusion (PBF-LB), and systematical observations and experiments for microstructure, defects, metallography, especially high cycle fatigue behaviour and fractography were conducted. Inadequate laser energy density results in hardly overlapping melting traces, generating numerous defects. Accordingly, the fabricated Invar 36 alloy presents an inferior high cycle fatigue life, as it failures from the rapid aggregation of the defects. In contrast, an adequate laser energy density remarkably enlarges the overlapping between adjacent melting traces. The large molten pools with steady boundaries are beneficially to generate favourable microstructures and low porosity. Consequently, the Invar 36 alloy shows superior high cycle fatigue life, completely generated from small crack propagation, long crack propagation and final fracture stages. Above experimental results and analysis primarily link up the PBF-LB process, microstructures (defects) and high cycle fatigue performance for PBF-LB Invar 36 alloy.