About this Abstract | 
  
   
    | Meeting | 
    MS&T24: Materials Science & Technology
       | 
  
   
    | Symposium 
       | 
    Tackling Metallic Structural Materials Challenges for Advanced Nuclear Reactors
       | 
  
   
    | Presentation Title | 
    Stress Relief Optimization for Laser Powder Bed Fusion Printed 316H Stainless Steel | 
  
   
    | Author(s) | 
    Geeta  Kumari, Amanda   Musgrove, Selda   Nayir, Tim  Graening, Peeyush  Nandwana, Caleb  Massey | 
  
   
    | On-Site Speaker (Planned) | 
    Geeta  Kumari | 
  
   
    | Abstract Scope | 
    
Additive Manufacturing (AM) has significantly enhanced the capability to efficiently manufacture complex parts for various extreme environment applications. However, post-processing optimization, particularly heat treatment, remains a challenge. On one hand, full solution annealing often fails to preserve AM's unique grain structures. On the other hand, conventional stress-relief (SR) heat treatments often fail to completely remove deleterious residual stresses without over-sensitizing the material. Hence, this work aims to fine-tune the SR parameters for Laser Powder Bed Fusion (LPBF) printed 316H stainless steel to promote dislocation recovery while preserving the diverse microstructural features, specifically the intragranular cellular structure. Through systematic experimental designs, we have explored a range of temperatures from 650℃ to 850℃ and varied the duration up to 6 hours to assess microstructural evolution. Advanced characterization techniques, including X-ray Diffraction (XRD) for dislocation density, and electron microscopy (SEM, TEM) for cellular structure analysis, have been employed to support our findings. |