Dry Sliding Wear Behavior of Laser Powder Bed Fusion Processed Inconel 718 Alloy

Abstract

With the increasing adoption of laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) for fabricating Inconel 718 alloys, growing attention has been directed toward evaluating their operational performance, particularly in relation to mechanical properties, fatigue behavior, and tribological characteristics. In the present study, dry linear reciprocating sliding wear tests were conducted to compare the wear behavior of LPBF-processed Inconel 718 with that of conventionally processed (CP) Inconel 718. The experiments were performed under different test conditions using Al₂O₃ balls as the counter body. The results indicate that, for both CP and LPBF alloys, the wear rate increases with applied load. However, the wear rate does not necessarily increase with frequency, and no clear positive correlation was observed. Moreover, the LPBF Inconel 718 alloy exhibited a little higher wear rate than its CP counterpart, a difference primarily attributed to variations in internal microstructural characteristics.