MELT POOL GEOMETRY SIMULATIONS FOR POWDER-BASED ELECTRON BEAM ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING

摘要

It is known that the melt pool geometry and dynamics strongly affect the build part properties in metal-based additive manufacturing (AM) processes. Thus, process temperature predictions may offer useful information of the melt pool evolution during the heating-cooling cycle. A transient thermal modeling for powder-based electron beam additive manufacturing (EBAM) process has been developed for process temperature simulations, considering temperature and porosity dependent thermal properties. In this study, the thermal model is applied to evaluate, for the case of Ti-6Al-4V in EBAM, the process parameter effects, such as the beam speed, on the temperature profile along the melt scan and the corresponding melt pool geometric characteristics such as the length-depth ratio and the cross-sectional area. The intent is to establish a process envelop for part quality control.