Multi-Scale, Heterogeneous CAD Representation for Metal Alloy Microstructures

Abstract

Most heterogeneous CAD representations in the literature represent materials using a volume fraction vector, which may not by physically realizable or meaningful. In contrast, the multi-scale, heterogeneous CAD representation presented here models materials using their microstructure. For the specific metal alloys of interest in this work, the material model is a probabilistic model of grain characteristics, represented as cumulative distribution functions. Several microstructure reconstruction algorithms are presented that enable different alloy grain structures to be reconstructed in a part model. Reconstructions can be performed at any desired size scale, illustrating the multi-scale capability of the representation. A part rendering algorithm is presented for displaying parts with their material microstructures. The multi-scale, heterogeneous CAD representation is demonstrated on two Inconel alloys and is shown to be capable of faithfully reconstructing part representations consistent with the probabilistic grain models.