5th International Conference on Advances in Solidification Processes (ICASP-5) 5th International Symposium on Cutting Edge of Computer Simulation of Solidification, Casting and Refining (CSSCR-5)

A thermo-mechanical model of powder bed fusion by laser beam is developed by the finite element method at the macro-scale. This approach focuses on the part construction, in which a level-set framework is adopted to track first the interface between the constructed part and the non-exposed powder, and second, the interface between gas and the successive powder bed layers. The accounting for the non-irradiated powder bed in the model allows an improved heat transfer resolution. In order to reach reasonable simulation time for industrial parts, the energy input and the formation of the additive deposit are simplified by considering them at the scale of fractions of layer, an entire layer or a so-called “super-layer”, that is a set of several layers. In each simulation strategy, the three stages of heating, cooling and the dwell time between two successive layers are included in the process modeling. In addition, the mechanical analysis following the thermal analysis is performed in each time step during all the stages of the construction process. At the end of the construction, the residual stress and distortion of the constructed part are presented. In all three strategies, mesh adaptation is employed, offering a good compromise between accuracy and sustainable computation time. Quantitative comparison between the three approaches will be presented and discussed.