The densification behavior of H13 tool steel powder by dual speed laser scanning strategy have been characterized for selective laser melting process, one of powder bed fusion based metal 3d printing. Under limited given laser power, the laser re-melting increases the relative density and hardness of H13 tool steel with closing pores. The single melt-pool analysis shows that the pores are located on top area of melt pool when the scanning speed is over 400 mm/s while the low scanning speed of 200 mm/s generates pores beneath the melt pool in the form of keyhole mode with the high energy input from the laser. With the second laser scanning, the pores on top area of melt pools are efficiently closed with proper dual combination of scan speed. However pores located beneath the melt pools could not be removed by second laser scanning. When each layer of 3d printing are re-melted, the relative density and hardness are improved for most dual combination of scanning. Among the scan speed combination, the 600 mm/s by 400 mm/s leads to the highest relative density, 99.94 % with hardness of 53.5 HRC. This densification characterization with H13 tool steel laser re-melting can be efficiently applied for tool steel component manufacturing via metal 3d printing.

The article presents research on solid particle erosive wear resistance of ductile cast iron after laser surface melting. This surface treatment technology enables improvement of wear resistance of ductile cast iron surface. For the test ductile cast iron EN GJS-350-22 surface was processed by high power diode laser HPDL Rofin Sinar DL020. For the research single pass and multi pass laser melted surface layers were made. The macrostructure and microstructure of multi pass surface layers were analysed. The Vickers microhardness tests were proceeded for single pass and multi pass surface layers. The solid particle erosive test according to standard ASTM G76 – 04 with 30°, 60° and 90° impact angle was made for each multi pass surface layer. As a reference material in erosive test, base material EN GJS-350-22 was used. After the erosive test, worn surfaces observations were carried out on the Scanning Electron Microscope. Laser surface melting process of tested ductile cast iron resulted in maximum 3.7 times hardness increase caused by microstructure change. This caused the increase of erosive resistance in comparison to the base material.

Production waste is one of the major sources of aluminium for recycling. Depending on the waste sources, it can be directly melted in furnaces, pre-cleaned and then melted, or due to the small size of the material (powder or dust) left without remelting. The latter form of waste includes chips formed during mechanical cutting (sawing) of aluminium and its alloys. In this study, this type of chips (with the dimensions not exceeding 1 mm) were melted. The obtained results of laboratory tests have indicated that even chips of such small sizes pressed into cylindrical compacts can be remelted. The high recovery yield (up to 94 %) and degree of metal coalescence (up to 100 %) were achieved via thermal removal of impurities under controlled conditions of a gas atmosphere (argon or/and air), followed with consolidation of chips at a pressure of minimum 170 MPa and melting at 750 oC with NaCl-KCl-Na3AlF6 salt flux.

Recyclability is one of the great features of aluminium and its alloys. However, it has been typically considered that the secondary aluminium quality is low and bad. This is only because aluminium is so sensitive to turbulence. Uncontrolled transfer and handling of the liquid aluminium results in formation of double oxide defects known as bifilms. Bifilms are detrimental defects. They form porosity and deteriorate the properties. The detection and quantification of bifilms in liquid aluminium can be carried out by bifilm index measured in millimetres as an indication of melt cleanliness using Reduced Pressure Test (RPT). In this work, recycling efficiency and quality change of A356 alloy with various Ti additions have been investigated. The charge was recycled three times and change in bifilm index and bifilm number was evaluated. It was found that when high amount of Ti grain refiner was added, the melt quality was increased due to sedimentation of bifilms with Ti. When low amount of Ti is added, the melt quality was degraded.

The removal of inclusions is a major challenge prior to the casting process, as they cause a discontinuity in the cast material, thereby lowering its mechanical properties and have a negative impact on the feeding capability and fluidity of the liquid alloys. In order to achieve adequate melt quality for casting, it is important to clean the melts from inclusions, for which there are numerous methods that can be used. In the course of the presented research, the inclusion removal efficiency of rotary degassing coupled with the addition of different fluxes was investigated. The effects of various cleaning fluxes on the inclusion content and the susceptibility to pore formation were compared by the investigation of K-mold samples and the evaluation of Density Index values at different stages of melt preparation. The chemical composition of the applied fluxes was characterized by X-ray powder diffraction, while the melting temperature of the fluxes was evaluated by derivatographic measurements. It was found that only the solute hydrogen content of the liquid metal could be significantly reduced during the melt treatments, however, better inclusion removal efficiency could be achieved with fluxes that have a low melting temperature.

The high pressure die casting technology allows the production of complex casts with good mechanical properties, with high production repeatability within narrow tolerance limits. However, the casts are somewhat porous, which may reduce their mechanical properties. There are several recommendations for reducing the porosity of casts, which are aimed at setting the technological parameters of the casting cycle. One of the primary and important ways to reduce the porosity and air entrapment in the melt is a suitable gating system design. Submitted contribution is devoted to assessing the influence of the runner branching geometry on the air entrapment within the cast volume during the filling phase of the casting cycle. Four variants of the gating system for a particular cast are compared with different design of main runner branching. The initial design is based on a real gating system where the secondary runner is connected to the main runner at an angle of 90 °. The modified designs are provided with a continuous transition of the main runner into the secondary ones, with the change in the branching runner radius r1 = 15 mm, r2 = 25 mm and r3 = 35 mm. The air entrapment in the melt is assessed within the cast volume behind the cores, which have been evaluated as a critical points with respect to further mechanical treatment. When designing the structural modification of geometry it was assumed that by branch changing using the radius value r3 = 35 mm, the melt flows fluently, and thus the value of the entrapped air in the volume of the cast will be the lowest. This assumption was disproved. The lowest values of entrapped air in the melt were found in the casts with runner transition designed with radius r1 = 15 mm. The conclusion of the contribution explains the causes of this phenomenon and from a designing point of view it presents proposal for measures to reduce the entrapment of the air in casts.