Simulation of Residual Stress in Lens Deposited H13 Tool Steel on Copper Substrate

Solidification cracking represents a significant scientific and technical challenge in the rapid fabrication of bimetallic parts involving Cu and H13 tool steel. The main cause of the cracking formation is attributed to the residual stress accumulation, which depends on the thermal history and phase transformation during the deposition. In this research, a thermomechanical three-dimensional finite element model is developed to determine the temperature history and residual stress in Cu-H13 samples deposited by the Laser Engineered Net Shaping (LENS) process. The development of the model was carried out using the SYSWELD software package. The metallurgical transformations are taken into account using the temperature dependent material properties and the continuous cooling transformation diagram. Two different scanning strategies — alternative and unidirectional — are studied. The same model is also applied to a H13-H13 sample to compare the results. The input laser power is optimized for each layer and three different scanning speeds to maintain a steady molten pool size. It is observed that for a constant scanning speed the required laser power decreases with addition of more layers, and with the increase of scanning speed the laser power needs to be increased. The residual stress is found to be compressive near the center of the deposited wall and tensile at the free edges, which is consistent with the published experimental results in the literature. Similar stress distributions are obtained for both scanning strategies with higher stress concentration at the free edges of the interface between the substrate and the first layer. In these regions, the use of H13 substrate results in a higher stress accumulation than the Cu substrate.