The effect of specimen inclination angle with respect to building direction on the tensile properties of a selective laser melt 316L alloy was investigated. Tensile test specimens were fabricated with the angles between 0° to 90° at 15° intervals using a rotation scanning. In addition, 316L alloy test specimens were generated in the ANSYS 2020R1 additive module and tensile tested in LS-DYNA in order to determine the effect of residual stresses on the tensile strengths. The microscopic analysis revealed a strong ⟨110⟩ fiber texture orientation along the building direction (the loading axis of 0° inclined specimens) and a weak texture or nearly random distribution of directions in the normal to the building direction (tensile loading axis of 90° inclined specimens). The yield and tensile strength increased and ductility decreased with increasing inclination angle. The strength variation with the inclination angle was shown well-fitted with the Tsai-Hill failure criterion. Although, the used numerical models indicated an inclination-dependent residual stress, the difference in the residual stresses was much lower than the difference in the strengths between 0° and 90° inclined specimens. Predictions showed a lower twinning stress in 0° inclined specimens due to ⟨110⟩ fiber texture orientation in the tensile axis. The fiber texture resulted in extensive twinning; hence, higher ductility and tension-compression asymmetry in 0° inclined specimens. Based on these results, the variations in the strength and ductility of tested SLM-316L specimens with the inclination angle was ascribed to the variations in the angle between the fiber texture orientation and loading axis.
