Local and global mechanical characterization of selective laser sintered components by indentation and tensile tests

Mechanical characterization of additive manufactured components is a priority need to promote an adequate transition in today’s manufacturing processes. Local and global mechanical properties can differ considerably, therefore not guaranteeing exhaustive knowledge of the behavior of components during their service life. Traditional tensile tests for global characterization and indentation tests for local characterization are employed to give a general overview of the mechanical properties of selective laser sintered components, i.e., yield stress, elastic modulus, and relaxation time. The experiments highlighted a local dependence of the properties with respect to the building direction, which was not detected through the global tests.