Powder-bed Electron Beam Additive Manufacturing Research Articles

Thermofluid Properties of Ti-6Al-4V Melt Pool in Powder-Bed Electron Beam Additive Manufacturing

Electron beam additive manufacturing (EBAM) is a powder-bed fusion additive manufacturing (AM) technology that can make full density metallic components using a layer-by-layer fabrication method. To build each layer, the EBAM process includes powder spreading, preheating, melting, and solidification. The quality of the build part, process reliability, and energy efficiency depends typically on the thermal behavior, material properties, and heat source parameters involved in the EBAM process. Therefore, characterizing those properties and understanding the correlations among the process parameters are essential to evaluate the performance of the EBAM process. In this study, a three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model with Ti-6Al-4V powder was developed incorporating the temperature-dependent thermal properties and a moving conical volumetric heat source with Gaussian distribution to conduct the simulations of the EBAM process. The melt pool dynamics and its thermal behavior were investigated numerically, and results for temperature profile, melt pool geometry, cooling rate and variation in density, thermal conductivity, specific heat capacity, and enthalpy were obtained for several sets of electron beam specifications. Validation of the model was performed by comparing the simulation results with the experimental results for the size of the melt pool.

A Simplified Methodology for Estimating Residual Stresses in Powder-Bed Electron Beam Additive Manufacturing

A Simplified Methodology for Estimating Residual Stresses in Powder-Bed Electron Beam Additive Manufacturing

Contact-Free Support Structures for Part Overhangs in Powder-Bed Metal Additive Manufacturing

This study investigates the feasibility of a novel concept, contact-free support structures, for part overhangs in powder-bed metal additive manufacturing. The intent is to develop alternative support designs that require no or little post-processing, and yet, maintain effectiveness in minimizing overhang distortions. The idea is to build, simultaneously during part fabrications, a heat sink (called “heat support”), underneath an overhang to alter adverse thermal behaviors. Thermomechanical modeling and simulations using finite element analysis were applied to numerically research the heat support effect on overhang distortions. Experimentally, a powder-bed electron beam additive manufacturing system was utilized to fabricate heat support designs and examine their functions. The results prove the concept and demonstrate the effectiveness of contact-free heat supports. Moreover, the method was tested with different heat support parameters and applied to various overhang geometries. It is concluded that the heat support proposed has the potential to be implemented in industrial applications.

A build surface study of Powder-Bed Electron Beam Additive Manufacturing by 3D thermo-fluid simulation and white-light interferometry

Abstract In this study, a three dimensional (3D) thermo-fluid model for the Powder Bed Electron Beam Additive Manufacturing (PB-EBAM) process was developed using ANSYS FLUENT software. Temperature dependence of both the surface tension and material physical properties was incorporated. In addition, the melt-pool free-surface dynamics was established using the volume of fluid (VOF) approach, taking into account the energy, volume fraction and flow equations at the interface when heated by a moving heat source. The developed model was applied to study the beam speed effect in the raster scanning scenario. In addition, the surfaces of PB-EBAM-fabricated Ti-6Al-4V parts were analyzed using a white-light interferometer. The results show that, in general the build surface roughness along the beam moving direction slightly increases with the scanning speed. On the other hand, the hatch spacing noticeably affects the surface roughness in the transverse direction. The experimentally acquired average surface roughness increased from about 3 µm for lower speed about 483 mm/s to 11 µm for higher speed case about 1193 mm/s. In addition, the average roughness of 4.28 µm, 5.5 µm, and 9.84 µm were obtained from simulation for different beam speeds which shows similar trend as that of experiment.

Nucleation and growth of chimney pores during electron-beam additive manufacturing

The nucleation and growth of chimney pores during powder-bed electron-beam additive manufacturing is investigated using in situ infrared thermography and micro-computed tomography. The chimney pores are found to nucleate heterogeneously at dimples on the side surfaces of additively manufactured components, and to grow through a molten-film rupture process. Further, these nucleation and growth processes are found to be strongly influenced by the beam diameter. Several strategies for suppressing the formation of chimney pores are discussed in light of these results.

Powder bed charging during electron-beam additive manufacturing

Electrons injected into the build envelope during powder bed electron-beam additive manufacturing can accumulate on the irradiated particles and cause them to repel each other. Under certain conditions, these electrostatic forces can grow so large that they drive the particles out of the build envelope in a process known as “smoking”. In the present work, we investigate the causes of powder bed charging and smoking during electron-beam additive manufacturing. In the first part of the paper, we characterize the surface chemistry of a common feedstock material—gas-atomized Ti-6Al-4V powder—and find that a thick, electrically insulating oxide overlayer encapsulates the particles. Based on these experimental results, we then formulate an analytical model of powder bed charging in which each particle is approximated as a capacitor, where the particle and its substrate are the electrodes and the oxide overlayer is the dielectric. Using this model, we estimate the charge distribution in the powder bed, the electrostatic forces acting on the particles, and the conditions under which the powder bed will smoke. It is found that the electrical resistivity of the oxide overlayer strongly influences the charging behavior of the powder bed and that a high resistivity promotes charge accumulation and consequent smoking. This analysis suggests new quality control and process design measures that can help suppress smoking.

A numerical investigation of thermal property effects on melt pool characteristics in powder-bed electron beam additive manufacturing

Powder-bed electron beam additive manufacturing has the potential to be a cost-effective alternative in producing complex-shaped, custom-designed metal parts using various alloys. Material thermal properties have a rather sophisticated effect on the thermal characteristics such as the melt pool geometry in fabrications, impacting the build part quality. The objective of this study is to achieve a quantitative relationship that can correlate the material thermal properties and the melt pool geometric characteristics in the electron beam additive manufacturing process. The motivation is to understand the interactions of material property effect since testing individual properties is insufficient because of the change of almost all thermal properties when switching from one to the other material. In this research, a full-factorial simulation experiment was conducted to include a wide range of the thermal properties and their combinations. A developed finite element thermal model was applied to perform electron beam additive manufacturing process thermal simulations incorporating tested thermal properties. The analysis of variance method was utilized to evaluate different thermal property effects on the simulated melt pool geometry. The major results are summarized as follows. (1) The material melting point is the most dominant factor to the melt pool size. (2) The role of the material thermal conductivity may outweigh the melting point and strongly affects the melt pool size, if the thermal conductivity is very high. (3) Regression equations to correlate the material properties and the melt pool dimension and shape have been established, and the regression-predicted results show a reasonable agreement with the simulation results for tested real-world materials. However, errors still exist for materials with a small melt pool such as copper.

Phase-Field Modeling of Microstructure Evolution in Electron Beam Additive Manufacturing

In this study, the microstructure evolution in the powder-bed electron beam additive manufacturing (EBAM) process is studied using phase-field modeling. In essence, EBAM involves a rapid solidification process and the properties of a build partly depend on the solidification behavior as well as the microstructure of the build material. Thus, the prediction of microstructure evolution in EBAM is of importance for its process optimization. Phase-field modeling was applied to study the microstructure evolution and solute concentration of the Ti-6Al-4V alloy in the EBAM process. The effect of undercooling was investigated through the simulations; the greater the undercooling, the faster the dendrite grows. The microstructure simulations show multiple columnar-grain growths, comparable with experimental results for the tested range.

Scanning Speed Effect on Mechanical Properties of Ti-6Al-4V Alloy Processed by Electron Beam Additive Manufacturing

In this study, mechanical properties in Ti-6Al-4V samples built with the powder-bed electron beam additive manufacturing (EBAM) process over a range of beam scanning speeds were experimentally investigated. Four levels of speed functions were applied to build samples, which were used to prepare the specimens for the nanoindentation test to obtain their mechanical properties. The measured averaged Young's modulus and hardness are about 111.7∼119.0GPa and 5.24∼6.52GPa, respectively. It has been found that the Young's modulus and hardness increase with the increase of scanning speed in EBAM. The scanning surface presents more superior mechanical properties than those from side surface. The mechanical properties are also correlated to the microstructure characterization of EBAM components.

On Process Temperature in Powder-Bed Electron Beam Additive Manufacturing: Process Parameter Effects

Build part certification has been one of the primary roadblocks for effective usage and broader applications of metal additive manufacturing (AM) technologies including powder-bed electron beam additive manufacturing (EBAM). Process sensitivity to operating parameters, among others such as powder stock variations, is one major source of property scattering in EBAM parts. Thus, it is important to establish quantitative relations between the process parameters and process thermal characteristics that are closely correlated with the AM part properties. In this study, the experimental techniques, fabrications, and temperature measurements, developed in recent work (Cheng et al., 2014, "On Process Temperature in Powder-Bed Electron Beam Additive Manufacturing: Model Development and Experimental Validation," ASME J. Manuf. Sci. Eng., (in press)) were applied to investigate the process parameter effects on the thermal characteristics in EBAM with Ti-6Al-4 V powder, using the system-specific setting called “speed function (SF)” index that controls the beam speed and the beam current during a build. EBAM parts were fabricated using different levels of SF index (20–65) and examined in the part surface morphology and microstructures. In addition, process temperatures were measured by near infrared (NIR) thermography with further analysis of the temperature profiles and the melt pool size. The thermal model, also developed in recent work, was further employed for EBAM temperature predictions, and then compared with the experimental results. The major results are summarized as follows. SF index noticeably affects the thermal characteristics in EBAM, e.g., a melt pool length of 1.72 mm and 1.26 mm for SF20 and SF65, respectively, at 24.43 mm build height. SF setting also strongly affects the EBAM part quality including the surface morphology, surface roughness and part microstructures. In general, a higher SF index tends to produce parts of rougher surfaces with more pore features and large β grain columnar widths. Increasing the beam speed will reduce the peak temperatures, also reduce the melt pool sizes. Simulations conducted to evaluate the beam speed effects are in reasonable agreement compared to the experimental measurements in temperatures and melt pools sizes. However, the results of a lower SF case, SF20, show larger differences between the simulations and the experiments, about 58% for the melt pool size. Moreover, the higher the beam current, the higher the peak process temperatures, also the larger the melt pool. On the other hand, increasing the beam diameter monotonically decreases the peak temperature and the melt pool length.

On Process Temperature in Powder-Bed Electron Beam Additive Manufacturing: Model Development and Validation

Powder-bed beam-based metal additive manufacturing (AM) such as electron beam additive manufacturing (EBAM) has a potential to offer innovative solutions to many challenges and difficulties faced in the manufacturing industry. However, the complex process physics of EBAM has not been fully understood, nor has process metrology such as temperatures been thoroughly studied, hindering part quality consistency, efficient process development and process optimizations, etc., for effective EBAM usage. In this study, numerical and experimental approaches were combined to research the process temperatures and other thermal characteristics in EBAM using Ti–6Al–4V powder. The objective of this study was to develop a comprehensive thermal model, using a finite element (FE) method, to predict temperature distributions and history in the EBAM process. On the other hand, a near infrared (NIR) thermal imager, with a spectral range of 0.78 μm–1.08 μm, was employed to acquire build surface temperatures in EBAM, with subsequent data processing for temperature profile and melt pool size analysis. The major results are summarized as follows. The thermal conductivity of Ti–6Al–4V powder is porosity dependent and is one of critical factors for temperature predictions. The measured thermal conductivity of preheated powder (of 50% porosity) is 2.44 W/m K versus 10.17 W/m K for solid Ti–6Al–4V at 750 °C. For temperature measurements in EBAM by NIR thermography, a method was developed to compensate temperature profiles due to transmission loss and unknown emissivity of liquid Ti–6Al–4V. At a beam speed of about 680 mm/s, a beam current of about 7.0 mA and a diameter of 0.55 mm, the peak process temperature is on the order around 2700 °C, and the melt pools have dimensions of about 2.94 mm, 1.09 mm, and 0.12 mm, in length, width, and depth, respectively. In general, the simulations are in reasonable agreement with the experimental results with an average error of 32% for the melt pool sizes. From the simulations, the powder porosity is found critical to the thermal characteristics in EBAM. Increasing the powder porosity will elevate the peak process temperature and increase the melt pool size.

Beam speed effects on Ti–6Al–4V microstructures in electron beam additive manufacturing

Abstract