Thermal fatigue and soldering experiments of additively manufactured hot work tool steels

Abstract: Modern manufacturing processes are under a never ending evolvement. Lowered manufacturing costs, higher part quality, shorter lead times and lower environmental impact are some important drivers for this development. Aluminum die casting is an effective and attractive process when producing components for e.g. the automotive sector. Die casting process development, and hot work tool steel development for the die casting dies has led to the state of the art of die casting today. However, with the disruptive emergence of Additive Manufacturing (AM) of hot work steel alloys, new interesting features such as improved conformal cooling channels inside die casting molds can be produced. The new way to manufacture die casting dies, need basic investigating of the AM produced hot work tool steel properties, and their applicability in this demanding hot work segment. Die casting dies face several detrimental wear mechanisms during use in production, three of which has been isolated and used for testing three AM produced steel alloys and one conventional premium hot work tool steel. The wear mechanisms simulated are; thermal fatigue, static soldering and agitated soldering. The aim is to study the AM produced steels applicability in the die casting process. The tested materials are; Premium AISI H13 grade Uddeholm Orvar Supreme, AM 1.2709, AM UAB1 and AM H13. Based on current investigations the conclusion that can be made is that with right chemistry, and right AM processing, conventional material Uddeholm Orvar Supreme still is better than AM H13. This also complies with the literature study results, showing that conventional material still is better than AM material in general.