CFD–DPM Simulation Study of the Effect of Powder Layer Thickness on the SLM Spatter Behavior

Abstract

Selective Laser Melting (SLM) has significant advantages in manufacturing complex structural components and refining the alloy microstructure; however, spatter, as a phenomenon that accompanies the entire SLM forming process, is prone to problems such as inclusions, porosity, and low powder recovery quality. In this paper, a Computational Fluid Dynamics–Discrete Particle Method (CFD–DPM) simulation flow for predicting the SLM spatter behavior is established based on the open-source code OpenFOAM. Among them, the single-phase flow Navier–Stokes equation is used in the Eulerian framework to equivalently describe the effect of metal vapor and protective gas on the flow field of the forming cavity, and the DPM method is used in the Lagrangian framework to describe the metal particle motion, and the factors affecting the particle motion include particle–particle collision, particle–wall collision, fluid drag force, gravity, buoyancy force, and additional mass force. In addition, the equivalent volume force and fluid drag force are used to characterize the fluid–particle coupling interaction. For the spatter behavior and powder bed denudation phenomenon, the calculation results show that the spatter height and the drop location show a clear correlation, and the powder bed denudation phenomenon is caused by the high-speed gas flow, causing the surrounding gas to gather in the forming area, which in turn drives the motion of the powder bed particles. For the effect of powder layer thickness on spatter and powder bed denudation, the calculation results show that the effect of powder layer thickness on the number of spatters is large (when the thickness was increased from 50 μm to 100 μm, the number of spatters increased by 157%), but the effect on spatter height and drop location distribution is small. When the powder layer thickness is small, the width of the denudation zone is significantly larger, but when the powder layer reaches a certain thickness, the width of the denudation zone does not show significant changes. It should be noted that the presented model has not been directly validated by experiments so far due to the difficulty of tracking the large-scale motion of SLM spatter in real time by current experimental means.