Our latest work on the Self-Terminating Etching Process (STEP) for stainless steel just got published in the Journal of Materials Special Topic: Additive Manufacturing for Energy Applications. Support Thickness, Pitch, and Applied Bias Effects on the Carbide Formation, Surface Roughness, and Material Removal of Additively Manufactured 316 L Stainless Steel.
Abstract: Advances in self-terminating etching processes have brought dissolvable supports to selective laser-melted stainless-steel alloys. Preliminary data showed that the amount of support material removed could be larger than the amount of material removed from the bulk material. This article details a small study aimed at understanding this phenomenon. First, the material removed and roughness as a function of applied bias is studied. From this, two different potentials were selected, 400 mVSHE, which removes 120 µm through intergranular corrosion, and 550 mVSHE, which removes material 39 µm through uniform corrosion. Next, a simulated set of support structures with wall thicknesses varying from 82 µm to 544 µm was etched under these two different potentials to report the range of thicknesses that can be reasonably removed.