A three-dimensional finite element analysis of the temperature field during laser melting of metal powders in additive layer manufacturing

By Ibiye Roberts, Changjiang Wang, R. Esterlein, M. Stanford, D. Mynors. 2009

710 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Simulating the transient temperature field in additive layer manufacturing (ALM) processes has presented a challenge to many researchers in the field. The transient temperature history is vital for determining the thermal stress distribution and residual stress states in ALM-processed parts that utilise a moving laser heat source. The modelling of the problem involving multiple layers is equally of great importance because the thermal interactions of successive layers affect the temperature gradients, which govern the heat transfer and thermal stress development mechanisms. This paper uses an innovative simulation technique known as element birth and death, in modelling the three-dimensional temperature field in multiple layers in a powder bed. The results indicate that the heated regions undergo rapid thermal cycles that could be associated with commensurate thermal stress cycles. Deposition of successive layers and subsequent laser scanning produces temperature spikes in previous layers. The resultant effect is a steady temperature build-up in the lower layers as the number of layers increases.

Subfields: Automotive Engineering, Computational Mechanics, Mechanical Engineering

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/97ae86ce6b8cd91c87a1ae182de83d820048100f

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Citations in the corpus

In situ heat treatment in selective laser melted martensitic AISI 420 stainless steels (2015, background): “Similarly to [10] the conductive mode of heat transport wasmodeled, convection in liquid and radiation energy losses were ignored since they have a minor contribution in the energy dissipation.”
Measurement Science Needs for Real-time Control of Additive Manufacturing Powder Bed Fusion Processes (2015, result): “In general, for single scan tracks in powder-bed type processes, the melt-pool and high temperature zone form a comet-like shape, with a high temperature gradient in the leading edge of the melt-pool, and lower temperature on the trailing edge [36], [122], [138], similar to results from Hussein et a”
Prediction of microstructure, residual stress, and deformation in laser powder bed fusion process (2018, methodology): “From the critical cooling rate, the final volume fraction of martensite (Vm), bainite (Vb), and perlite plus ferrite (V f p) can be calculated from the following equations [11]:”
Parametric analysis of thermal behavior during selective laser melting additive manufacturing of aluminum alloy powder (2014, background): “[13] predicted the transient temperature field for TiAl6V4 powder layers of parts produced by the SLM process.”