3D printing of magnetostrictive property in 17/4 ph stainless steel

Additive manufacturing (AM) of metallic alloys significantly advances diverse areas of science/engineering with a prosperous future trend. Although this technology is also very attractive for smart materials development, the creation of a pre-programmed “4th dimension” property to appear in response to external stimuli represents an important challenge. Here we report on 3D printing of stainless steel based magnetic alloy and detail the ways to optimize the magnetisation and magnetostriction to be used for actuation and sensing. By controlling the printing parameters and sintering process, we are able to tune the magnetic and magnetoelastic properties of the 17/4 ph stainless steel, demonstrating material fabrication multi-function with a cost effective advantage. The stainless steel 17/4 ph samples in the as-printed (AP) and sintered steel (SS) stages are compared. In the developed SS sample, a remarkable increase of 18% in saturation magnetisation yet with 12.6 % lower coercivity was achieved. Moreover, the 54% higher magnetostriction was developed for the SS sample compared to the AP sample. Plus, the difference in anisotropy energy K1 was also lower for the SS sample. The structural and magnetic properties control are reported at each stage of the printing process, demonstrating development and optimization prospects of 3D printable metallic sensors and actuators.