Investigation of mechanical, tribological and magnetic properties after plasma nitriding of AISI 316L stainless steel produced with different orientations angles by selective laser melting

In this study, AISI 316L stainless steel samples were produced with different orientations (0°, 45°, and 90°) using selective laser melting (SLM). In addition, plasma nitriding of the samples produced with SLM was performed at 400 °C for 4 h. The effect of different orientation on the structural, mechanical, tribological, and magnetic properties of 316L stainless steel was investigated. The same measurements also were made after the plasma nitriding process. The results showed that the phase composition and microstructure of the non-nitriding and nitridied samples were affected from the built orientation. Especially the XRD peaks shifted to the left with a decrease in the orientation angle. It was obtained that the highest modified layer thickness was measured from the samples produced with an angle of 0°. It was observed that the surface hardness, residual stress, wear resistance and antimagnetization tendency values of nitridied samples were higher than the non-nitriding samples. Furthermore, these values tended to increase with the decrease in build orientation angles.