A comprehensive characterization of the effect of spatter powder on IN939 parts fabricated by laser powder bed fusion

This study is focused on a comprehensive characterization of virgin and spatter IN939 powders and the effects of a certain amount of spatter powder on the part quality of IN939 fabricated by the L-PBF process. A brown tint coloration formed Al₂O₃ oxide, pores, a 124.4% increase in the average particle size, a 10.2% decrease in the powder circularity, and a 7.5% decrease in the powder aspect ratio were observed in the spatter powder. Additionally, higher average grain size and lower nanohardness were obtained for the spatter powder. In order to understand the effect of a certain amount of spatter powder on the part quality, 10 wt% spatter powder was mixed with the virgin powder. This addition was found to decrease the flowability of the powder. Moreover, this addition decreased relative density by around 0.3% and increased surface roughness by around 80.8% in the fabricated samples (termed as V and SV). On the other hand, there was no considerable microstructural, texture, microhardness, and nanohardness difference between V and SV samples, although the spatter powder addition caused a 30.2% increase in the average grain size of SV. The overall texture for both V and SV samples exhibit (0 0 1)//BD.