Chapter 22 - Modeling and simulation of additive manufacturing processes with metallic powders—potentials and limitations demonstrated on application examples

Abstract

Selective laser melting (SLM) and laser metal deposition (LMD) of metallic powders are promising manufacturing technologies that have recently received a great attention from different producing industries with a wide spectrum of applications. The new trend is to facilitate these novel additive manufacturing processes for fabricating complex ready-to-use final components, besides minor postprocessing operations still inevitable for certain applications. This chapter aims to present the state-of-the-art of different modeling approaches for replicating physical effects in additive manufacturing. Focus is specifically placed on hands-on modeling solutions with reasonable computation duration based on thermal analytical models and thermomechanical finite element analyses to support SLM and LMD process development with high strength metallic powders. Particularly, in case postprocessing cutting operations are involved or thin-walled parts are manufactured, the geometrical accuracy issue appears to be of great relevance. The proposed modeling methods are evaluated with regard to their reliability to replicate the heat input during processing and calculate the final shape of SLM and LMD components. The rendered results are evaluated and advantages and deficits of the proposed models are identified and discussed.