Optimized Laser Surface Remelting of 3D-Printed Ti6Al4V Manufactured Through Electron Beam MeltingOptimized Laser Surface Remelting of 3D-Printed Ti6Al4V Manufactured Through Electron Beam MeltingChen, Tsai, and Ou

Laser surface remelting (LSR) has been employed to reduce the surface roughness of these 3D-printed products. However, the influences of LSR parameters such as defocus distance, stripe width, scanning number, and hatch distance on surface roughness have not been extensively investigated. Therefore, this study used the Taguchi method to identify optimized parameter settings for minimizing roughness of 3D-printed Ti6Al4V plates using LSR. In the initial phase of the Taguchi method, defocus distance, stripe width, and scanning number were considered. Among these factors, defocus distance had the strongest effect on reducing roughness, contributing 43.9%, followed by stripe width (21.6%) and scanning number (12.4%). The subsequent phase of analysis, which was conducted at a defocus distance of − 10 mm, included stripe width, scanning number, and hatch distance, which contributed 18.2%, 44.4%, and 25.5% of the surface roughness, respectively. The optimal conditions, namely a scanning number of 25, a defocus distance of − 10 mm, and a hatch distance of 0.004, resulted in the lowest surface roughness (Ra2.8 ± 0.3 μm), which was 86.6% lower than that observed for the as-received Ti6Al4V substrate (Ra20.95 ± 4.14 μm).