H13 is a widely used versatile tool steel and is well known for its excellent combination of high resistance to compression, thermal shock, and abrasion. H13 is heavily used for more hot work tooling applications than other grades of tool steel as well as a variety of cold work conditions because of its high toughness and good stability in heat treatment. H13 covers a wide range of application from die casting, extrusion dies and high toughness and polished (up to A1 grade) injection mold components.
H13’s high carbon content makes it extremely difficult to weld or process with standard Metal Laser Sintering parameters. The carbon content is easily vaporized and can contaminate the powder surface during the welding process, which may lead to issues such as internal flaws, porosity and thermal cracks, especially in the area of stress concentration.
In order to find the solution to the challenge, Farsoon’s application team joined hands with U.S. industrial partner Next Chapter Manufacturing in an ongoing program to develop advanced process parameters to produce robust H13 tooling using Laser Sintering process.