Retained austenite content is another feature that is different for horizontal and vertical specimens due to their dissimilar thermal cycles and aspect ratios. In comparison to vertical specimens, higher cooling rates of horizontal ones result in a decreased austenite grain size in these samples [38]. Reduction of austenite grain size leads to a decrease in the martensite-start temperature [50,51]. Although the actual reason behind this phenomenon is yet to be understood, some studies simply attributed the lower martensite-start temperature to the higher strength of the fine-grained austenite, as a result of its hall-Petch strengthening [50]. Thus, while cooling rates of both horizontal and vertical samples are high enough for martensite formation during the SLM process, finer austenite of horizontal samples is in favor of incomplete austenite to martensite transformation. Consequently, in steels with metastable austenite, such as SLM steel 630, higher cooling rates of horizontal specimens resulted in a higher fraction of retained austenite in the final microstructure [38,52].