Quantitative simulation of selective laser melting of metals enabled by new high-fidelity multiphase, multiphysics computational tool

Abstract

Laser powder bed fusion represents the future for metal additive manufacturing. Advance of this emerging technology is bottlenecked by the unavailability of high-fidelity prediction tools for cost-effective optimization on printing design. Simulations of selective laser melting of metals must tackle a complex granular solids and multiphase fluids system that undergoes intra- and inter-phase interactions and thermal-induced phase changes, including melting, vaporization, and solidification, which are challenging to model. We develop a high-fidelity computational tool to provide high-resolution simulations of the multiphase, multiphysics processes of selective laser melting (SLM). Key to this tool is a multi-phase, semi-coupled resolved Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and Discrete Element Method (DEM). It contains innovative features including (1) a fully resolved immersed boundary CFD with fictitious particle domain coupling with DEM for resolving mechanical interactions and heat transfers between solid particles and surrounding fluid; (2) An evaporation model in consideration of the Knudsen layer implemented in the volume of fluid (VOF) method which is enriched by two sharp interface capture schemes, isoAdvector and MULES, for accurate identification of the vaporization process and phase boundaries of fluids with different Courant numbers; and (3) a ray tracing model compatible with the VOF method for high-resolution of absorbed laser energy. We demonstrate the proposed method can quantitatively reproduce key observations from synchrotron experiments and captures critical interdependent physics involving melt pool morphology evolution, vapor-driven keyhole dynamics and powder motions. This new computational tool opens a new avenue for quantitative design and systematic optimization of laser powder bed fusion and may find wider engineering applications where thermal induced phase changes in a multi-phase system are important.