Study on finishing characteristics with free abrasive grains and cooling performance of channels with various cross-sectional shapes

Abstract

This study describes a finishing performance of cooling channels built by laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) using free abrasive grains. Different types of cross-sectional channel are built, and the effect of internal face finishing on the surface quality and cooling performance is investigated. As results, the use of free abrasive grains enabled the improvement of the cooling performance in addition to the surface quality in the cooling channel. The cooling performance was depending on the surface area of channels and the triangle cross section was suitable for the achievement of uniform surface quality due to the limitation of LPBF.