The importance of powders on the final part properties in selective laser melting (SLM) process is well-known. At the moment, gas atomization is used to produce powders for the SLM process. However, there is a growing interest in investigating the use of the less expensive water atomization process. In this work, water and gas atomized powders were used as feedstock to produce specimens with an industrial SLM system. First, the influence of particle size distribution and layer thickness on the final part density was studied by varying process parameters by means of a factorial design. The results showed that by using a particle size distribution in the range 15–60 $\mu$m the difference in part density between water and gas atomized is negligible even using the same combination of parameters. The tensile properties of GA and WA powder are comparable: respectively 599 and 601 MPa for the ultimate tensile strength, 18% and 20% for the elongation.

粉末对选择性激光熔化（SLM）工艺中最终零件性能的重要性是众所周知的。目前，气体雾化用于生产SLM工艺的粉末。然而，对研究使用较便宜的水雾化方法的兴趣与日俱增。在这项工作中，将水和气体雾化粉末用作原料，以工业SLM系统生产样品。首先，通过阶乘设计，通过改变工艺参数来研究粒度分布和层厚对最终零件密度的影响。结果表明，通过使用15–60范围内的粒径分布 $\mu$即使使用相同的参数组合，雾化的水和气体之间的部分密度差异也可以忽略不计。GA和WA粉末的拉伸性能相当：极限拉伸强度分别为599 MPa和601 MPa，伸长率分别为18％和20％。