STRESS RELIEVING OF MARAGING STEEL INJECTION MOULD INSERTS BUILT THROUGH ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING

Abstract

Additive Manufacturing (AM) has been identified as one of the key technologies in Industry 4.0 and has become quite appealing in the Injection Moulding (IM) industry. The development of metal powders for selective laser melting (SLM) has created the potential for SLM to be used for the manufacture of high volume production IM tooling inserts. While this is appealing, the induced residual stresses present in SLM produced parts could prove to be problematic. This paper describes the development of a suitable stress relieving heat treatment process for IM tooling inserts built using Maraging Steel (MS1) powder in the Direct Metal Laser Sintering (DMLS) process.