Materials reference
Stainless Steel 17-4 PH
What is it?
Stainless Steel 17-4 PH is a metal alloy selected for particular strength, temperature, weight or manufacturing needs.
Why would someone print it?
Printing may help create complex shapes or low-volume parts, but the complete finishing and inspection route still matters.
What should a beginner know?
- Confirm the exact machine, material settings and acceptance requirements.
- A material listing does not by itself qualify a production part.
What happens after printing?
Printed parts may need heat treatment, support removal, machining, finishing and inspection before they are accepted. Powder feedstock is often the largest consumable in LPBF economics — public powder price evidence, where records exist, is collected by alloy on its own page.
What is an alloy?
What does this mean? An alloy is a defined metal composition. Why does it matter? Composition, process settings and post-processing affect the finished part.
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Technical material evidence
A precipitation-hardening martensitic stainless: it reaches high strength through a relatively low-temperature aging treatment rather than the high-temperature cycles other strong steels need. That combination — stainless corrosion behavior with near-tool-steel strength after H900-class aging — is why it is a common AM choice for brackets, shafts and tooling that 316L would underperform in. The AM-specific catch: strength is a post-heat-treatment property, not an as-printed one, and the aging route changes the outcome. Confirm which condition the printed-part numbers refer to before comparing against a wrought datasheet.
LPBF + bound-metal extrusion · process-family reference. Nominal alloy properties and printed-part properties are different evidence — the table and sections below separate what is verified from what needs your qualified process.
| Property | Evidence |
|---|---|
| Designations | AISI 17-4 PH UNS S17400 EN 1.4542OEM ↗ · Source reviewed |
| Nominal material density | 7.8–7.9 g/cm³THIRD-PARTY ↗ · Source reviewed |
| Powder price | Current supplier quote required No public powder list price was captured in the supplied source review. Obtain a current supplier quote. |
Post-processing evidence
Two-step: solution anneal + aging in vacuum/inert gas; H-condition hardness per application (EOS data sheet)
OEM ↗ · Source reviewedThis is a research summary, not a production heat-treatment instruction. Use the current OEM material datasheet, qualified parameter set and application-specific acceptance requirements.
Machine and process compatibility
Manufacturing considerations
- published properties require mandatory HT; do not sell as-built properties as final