Powder-Scale Meshfree Simulations of Powder Bed Fusion Based Additive Manufacturing Processes

Abstract

Abstract We present a powder-scale meshfree direct numerical simulation (DNS) capability for the powder bed fusion (PBF) based additive manufacturing (AM) processes using the novel Hot Optimal Transportation Meshfree (HOTM) method. The HOTM method is an incremental Lagrangian meshfree computational framework for materials behaviors under extreme thermomechanical loading conditions, which combines the Optimal Transportation Meshfree (OTM) method and the variational thermomechanical constitutive updates. The realistic multi-layer powder bed geometry is modeled explicitly in the HOTM simulations based on experimental data. A phase-aware constitutive model is developed to predict the phase change and multiphase mixing during the PBF AM processes automatically. The governing equations including the linear momentum and energy conservation equations are solved for the multiphase flow simultaneously to predict the deformation, temperature and local state of the powder particles. The powder-scale DNS is employed to study the influence of various laser powers on the melt pool thermodynamics.