Review Reports

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors,

You did an interesting work but the presentation of it does not satisfy. My remarks are as follows:

 

Abstract should be brief and shortened.

In Materials part is stated that powders were provided by Feilkang. What is Feilkang? There is no information on the internet about it.

How did you get Figure 1? Is it your work or from Feilkang? If it is yours, what instruments did you use? The same is true for table 1.

How did you select the process parameters (Tables 2 and 3)?

Characterization section should be expanded with all testing methods that were used in this work.

Conclusion should be concise.

Author Response

Thank the experts for their comments. See the annex for details of the response.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors present very well thought specialized and multicriterial research on the effects of the SLM process parameters on the quality and performance of the Ti-Alloy fabricated objects.

The choice or rather working out of optimal forming parameters of Ti6Al4V under SLM is specific and important due to the mentioned difficulty of machining Ti-alloys and the high requirements regarding the application in the aerospace, biomedical, and automotive industries. Apart from providing in the Introduction several representative examples of such applications of the SLM-produced of Ti6Al4V parts for the mentioned industries (endoprostheses, hypersonics, turbine engines, etc.) Authors also could include examples of risks and consequences resulting from possible imperfections or defects.

In the Results and Discussion, authors should try to confront their obtained results with results from other researchers dealing with Selective Laser Melting.

The authors performed their research on the specific SLM equipment that provides quite a specific range of processing parameters. How do their findings apply to other SLM systems? Also, It is known that the efficiency of nominal parameters, such as e.g. laser power, decreases with a long-term (or rather many hours) operation of the SLM machine, and this also affects the quality of SLM machined parts.

A comment from authors about how their results relate to the operational wear of considered SLM equipment is requested. The authors should express their motivation regarding the choice of Coatings journal for their paper. The reviewer believes the leading aspect might be the improvement of the functional properties of the surface and interfaces of different parts manufactured in SLM technology for the mentioned industries.

It is not clear enough in the discussion how the presented results could be applicable for the surface quality. Although it is discussed in the manuscript, due to the Coatings journal scope, this aspect should be accentuated in the foreground.

Author Response

Thank the experts for their comments. See the annex for details of the response.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

In this paper, a study on additive manufacturing of Ti-6Al-4V alloy powder using the SLM process was conducted, and a study was conducted to minimize micropores and spheroidization defects by adjusting process parameters.

In particular, it is expected that practical experiments on the surface quality of the particles in the stacked section through variables such as output size and exposure time will be conducted to derive the optimal conditions under the conditions of this paper to help researchers who conduct similar studies.

Therefore, this paper has revealed that the microstructure analysis for each SLM experiment condition, the larger the laser output, the better the bonding force between the particles and the solidification behavior of Ti-6Al-4V alloy with HCP structure for each particle in the prototype and it has confirmed that the exposure time does not have a significant effect.

Furthermore, the Ti-6Al-4V alloy as HCP structure, if a thermodynamic model is added, it is expected that it will be possible to give more metallographic significance to the formation of interlayer particles.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Thank the experts for their comments. See the annex for details of the response.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx