Analysis of Melt-Pool Behaviors during Selective Laser Melting of AISI 304 Stainless-Steel Composites

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors,

The paper describes analysis of melt pool behaviors during selective-laser-melting of AISI 304 stainless-steel composites. The melt pool behaviors during selective laser melting (SLM) of Al2O3-reinforced and eutectic mixture of Al2O3-ZrO2-reinforced AISI 304 stainless-steel composites have been numerically analyzed and experimentally validated.

In my opinion the article is prepared well. The experiments showed correct results. In my opinion it could be published after small minor revision.

General remarks:
- I propose to change keywords list, you should mark "selective laser melting" as one kayword, the same in the next.

- Please delete spaces in the brackets, eg. line 30 [1, 2], should be [1,2].

Section "1. Introduction":
This section is prepared well and includes suitable information in the field of used techniques and materials. It also includes the novelty statement.

Section "2. Material and SLM system":

Also in this section everything is clear for me.

Section "3. FE modeling":

- Please add reference to your equations (1), (2).

- Please check line 197.

Section "4. Results and discussion":

Discussion is strongly connected with the results. Each figure is described in propper way. In my opinion this is the strongest part of the paper. Good job.

Section "5. Conclusion":

Conclusions are connected with the results and showed main informations from the experiments.

Author Response

Please refer to the attached revision note. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors provided modeling and experiments in ceramic metal-matrix composites processed by SLM.

Among other issues, Eq. 7 gives the wrong absorptivity for the powder as compared to the bulk material. In fact, the absorptivity of powder is larger, not smaller than that of bulk, as Eq. 7 would suggest instead. The authors need to correct this and re-run all calculation before any further assessment of the paper may be done.

For the correct values of absorptivity, the authors may refer to Boley et al., Metal powder absorptivity-modeling and experiment, Applied Optics (2016)

Author Response

Please refer to the attached revision note. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The paper presents a 3D FE model that has been validated through experiments for melt pool behaviors during selective-laser-melting of AISI 304 stainless-steel composites. The paper is well-structured. The authors should include the following details to improve the quality of the paper.

- Please indicate which standard was followed for Vickers micro-hardness test (BSI/ASTM)?

- Page 1; line 40: ........dealing with melt pool...........

- Page 10; line 289: ........and discussion, it is evident that the melt pool lifetime has an effect on......

- Pages 12-13; lines358-363:Different font style compared to the rest of the manuscript.

Author Response

Please refer to the attached revision note. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors have included the correct absorptivity of powder. However, upon further inspection, I saw another issue in Eq. 3: the dependence of the heat source on depth is using the absorptivity as the peneration depth, which is incorrect. The two are different, see for example Hussein et al Materials & Design (2015), Vastola et al JOM (2016). Penetration depth is ~ 28 micron for SLM. Authors need to consider these two parameters differently, and after they have redone the calculations once again, they need to show in Fig. 4 the actual length scale and temperature scale of the simulations panels. Only with a deeper quantitative comparison we may be more sure of the correctness of the simulations

Author Response

Please refer to the attached revision note.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 3

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors have fixed the heat source model and have added the scale bars in Fig. 4 as suggested. I have no further comments.