Analysis of the Effect of Machining of the Surfaces of WAAM 18Ni 250 Maraging Steel Specimens on Their Durability

It is now well-known that the interaction between surface roughness and surface-breaking defects can significantly degrade the fatigue life of additively manufactured (AM) parts. This is also aptly illustrated in the author’s recent study on the durability of wire and arc additively manufactured (WAAM) 18Ni 250 Maraging steel specimens, where it was reported that failure occurred due to fatigue crack growth that arose due to the interaction between the surface roughness and surface-breaking material defects. To improve the durability of an AM part, several papers have suggested the machining of rough surfaces. However, for complex geometries the fully machining of the entire rough surface is not always possible and the effect of the partial machining on durability is unknown. Therefore, this paper investigates if partial machining of WAAM 18Ni 250 Maraging steel surfaces will help to improve the durability of these specimens. Unfortunately, the result of this investigation has shown that partial machining may not significantly improve durability of WAAM 18Ni 250 Maraging steel specimens. Due to the order of surface roughness seen in WAAM 250 Maraging steel, the improvement to durability is only realized by full machining to completely remove the remnants of any print artefacts.