ABSTRACT
Nowadays the moving from Rapid Prototyping to Direct Manufacturing is a major challenge for the Additive Manufacturing technologies. It requires a robust repeatable process that makes possible to fabricate parts with desirable properties and microstructure. Selective Laser Melting (SLM) is one of such additive manufacturing process of joining powder materials layer by layer in order to fabricate 3D parts of complex shape directly from its CAD data (Wohler, 2010). Contrary to conventional technologies, this technique makes it possible to manufacture complex shape high-value added parts without dies or moulds. The development of this technology was essentially driven by industrial need to fabricate
approximately 100% dense objects with mechanical properties comparable to those of bulk materials.
