Abstract: Laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) is a potential additive manufacturing process to manufacture Invar 36 alloy components with complicated geometry. Whereas it inevitably introduces specific microstructures and pore defects, which will further influence the mechanical properties. Hence, aiming at exploring the LPBF process-related microstructures and pore defects, and especially their influences on the damage mechanism and mechanical properties, Invar 36 alloy was manufactured by LPBF under designed different laser scanning speeds. The microstructure observations reveal that higher scanning speeds lead to equiaxed and short columnar grains with higher dislocation density, while lower scanning speeds result in elongated columnar grains with lower dislocation density. The pore defects analyzed by X-ray computed tomography (XCT) suggest that the high laser scanning speed gives rise to numerous lamellar and large lack-of-fusion (LOF) pores, and the excessively low laser scanning speed produces relatively small keyhole pores with high sphericity. Moreover, the in-situ XCT tensile tests were originally performed to evaluate the damage evolution and failure mechanism. Specifically, high laser scanning speed causes brittle fracture due to the rapid growth and coalescence of initial lamellar LOF pores along the scanning direction. Low laser scanning speed induces ductile fracture originating from unstable depressions in the surfaces, while metallurgical and keyhole pores have little impact on damage evolution. Eventually, the process-structure-property correlation is established. The presence of high volume fraction of lamellar LOF pores, resulting from high scanning speed, leads to inferior yield strength and ductility. Besides, specimens without LOF pores exhibit larger grain sizes and lower dislocation density at decreased scanning speeds, slightly reducing yield strength while slightly enhancing ductility. This understanding lays the foundation for widespread applications of LPBF-processed Invar 36 alloy.

Key words: Invar 36 alloy, Laser powder bed fusion, Microstructure, Pore defects, Mechanical property, X-ray tomography in-situ tensile test