Fracture toughness of selective laser melted AlSi10Mg

Additive manufacturing represents a unique opportunity for the generation of highly complex components. Given the inherent anisotropic material behaviour, reasoned in the layer-wise generation process and the resulting span of mechanical properties with the lack of available data, the implementation of this manufacturing technique in industrial applications is challenging and requests expensive and time-consuming material testing. This work focuses on the fracture toughness of selective laser-melted precipitation-hardenable AlSi10Mg specimens, including positioning and inclination effects. Samples in accordance to the ASTM E 399-08 standard were fabricated in six different orientations and were subject to mode I fracture toughness testing. The notches were implemented in a subsequent milling procedure and the evaluation was undertaken as outlined in the ASTM E 1820-09 standard. Minor directional dependencies were found and the selective laser-melted samples revealed similar fracture toughness results as conventional bulk material, namely K-IC-values in the range from 40 to 60 MPam.