Effect of heat treatment on the microstructure and mechanical properties of maraging steel by selective laser melting

Abstract This work investigates the solution phenomenon, aging behavior and room-temperature mechanical properties of maraging steel manufactured by selective laser melting (SLM). Different heat treatment experiments, including solution treatment (ST), direct aging treatment (DAT) and solution + aging treatment (SAT) are designed. Microstructure analysis indicates that ST and SAT will eliminate the cellular and lath structures, but DAT has little effect on these. The content of austenite increases with the addition of DAT temperature and holding time. While austenite is almost undetectable in ST and SAT samples. Meanwhile, both the elongation and toughness of the samples with DAT gain a slight improvement with the temperature increasing. Importantly, DAT yields similar microhardness, tensile strength and impact toughness to SAT, although the resultant microstructures are completely different. The results demonstrate that DAT can achieve the similar mechanical properties to SAT samples. Samples with high mechanical properties (microhardness of 653.93 HV and ultimate strength of 2126.30 MPa) have been obtained by DAT at 520 °C for 6 h as well as solution treatment at 900 °C for 1 h and aging treatment at 520 °C for 6 h. This investigation reveals the evolution regularity of microstructure, microhardness, tensile performance and impact toughness of maraging steel manufactured by SLM after different heat treatments.