Thermal Analysis of Electron Beam Additive Manufacturing Using Ti-6Al-4V Powder-Bed

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Shafiqur Rahman ◽  
Paul J. Schilling ◽  
Paul D. Herrington ◽  
Uttam K. Chakravarty
Keyword(s):  
Electron Beam ◽  
Additive Manufacturing ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Vital Role ◽  
Full Density ◽  
Rate Variation ◽  
Layer By Layer ◽  
Powder Bed ◽  
Part Quality ◽  
Melt Pool

Electron Beam Additive Manufacturing (EBAM) is one of the emerging additive manufacturing (AM) technologies that is uniquely capable of making full density metallic components using layer-by-layer fabrication method. To build each layer, the process includes powder spreading, pre-heating, melting, and solidification. The thermal and material properties involved in the EBAM process play a vital role to determine the part quality, reliability, and energy efficiency. Therefore, characterizing the properties and understanding the correlations among the process parameters are incumbent to evaluate the performance of the EBAM process. In this study, a three dimensional computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model with Ti-6Al-4V powder has been 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 have been investigated numerically using a CFD solver and results for temperature profile, cooling rate, variation in density, thermal conductivity, specific heat capacity, and enthalpy have been obtained for a particular set of electron beam specifications.

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

2019 ◽  
Vol 141 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
M Shafiqur Rahman ◽  
Paul J. Schilling ◽  
Paul D. Herrington ◽  
Uttam K. Chakravarty
Keyword(s):  
Electron Beam ◽  
Additive Manufacturing ◽  
Heat Source ◽  
Thermal Behavior ◽  
Source Parameters ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Full Density ◽  
Layer By Layer ◽  
Powder Bed ◽  
Melt Pool

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 Comparative Study Between Selective Laser Melting and Electron Beam Additive Manufacturing Based on Thermal Modeling

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Shafiqur Rahman ◽  
Paul J. Schilling ◽  
Paul D. Herrington ◽  
Uttam K. Chakravarty
Keyword(s):  
Electron Beam ◽  
Additive Manufacturing ◽  
Heat Source ◽  
Selective Laser Melting ◽  
Thermal Modeling ◽  
Maximum Temperature ◽  
Full Density ◽  
Rate Variation ◽  
Laser Melting ◽  
Melt Pool

Selective Laser Melting (SLM) and Electron Beam Additive Manufacturing (EBAM) are two of the most promising additive manufacturing technologies that can make full density metallic components using layer-by-layer fabrication methods. In this study, three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics models with Ti-6Al-4V powder were developed to conduct numerical simulations of both the SLM and EBAM processes. A moving conical volumetric heat source with Gaussian distribution and temperature-dependent thermal properties were incorporated in the thermal modeling of both processes. The melt-pool geometry and its thermal behavior were investigated numerically and results for temperature profile, cooling rate, variation in specific heat, density, thermal conductivity, and enthalpy were obtained with similar heat source specifications. Results obtained from the two models at the same maximum temperature of the melt pool were then compared to describe their deterministic features to be considered for industrial applications. Validation of the modeling was performed by comparing the EBAM simulation results with the EBAM experimental results for melt pool geometry.

Thermo-Fluid Characterizations of Ti-6Al-4V Melt Pool in Powder-Bed Electron Beam Additive Manufacturing

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Shafiqur Rahman ◽  
Paul J. Schilling ◽  
Paul D. Herrington ◽  
Uttam K. Chakravarty
Keyword(s):  
Electron Beam ◽  
Additive Manufacturing ◽  
Complex Geometry ◽  
High Energy ◽  
Cfd Modeling ◽  
Beam Power ◽  
Rate Variation ◽  
Beam Diameter ◽  
Powder Bed ◽  
Melt Pool

The powder-bed electron beam additive manufacturing (EBAM) process is one of the relatively new additive manufacturing (AM) technologies in which the metal powder is melted in a vacuum environment utilizing a high-energy heat source to fabricate metallic parts in a layer by layer manner. Different metallic alloys (especially, high entropy alloys such as Ti-6Al-4V) have been widely studied as a powder-bed material for the EBAM. Despite the unique advantages of designing complex geometry and tooling-free manufacturing, there are still considerable challenges in the EBAM, e.g., obtaining desired metallurgical behavior, part accuracy, reliability, and quality consistency. Therefore, a better understanding of the thermo-fluid and mechanical properties of the EBAM process is indispensable to meet the challenges. In this study, transient computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modeling of Ti-6Al-4V melt pool has been done using ANSYS Fluent 15.0 to characterize the process parameters associated with the EBAM process including the melt pool geometry, beam power, beam speed, beam diameter, and temperature profile along the melt scan. In fact, the dynamics and the solidification of the melt pool have been investigated numerically and results for cooling rate, variation in density, pressure, velocities, and liquid fraction have been obtained to illustrate the versatility of the analysis.

scholarly journals An Overview of Additive Manufacturing Technologies—A Review to Technical Synthesis in Numerical Study of Selective Laser Melting

Materials ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (17) ◽  
pp. 3895 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abbas Razavykia ◽  
Eugenio Brusa ◽  
Cristiana Delprete ◽  
Reza Yavari
Keyword(s):  
Numerical Simulation ◽  
Additive Manufacturing ◽  
Selective Laser Melting ◽  
Powder Bed Fusion ◽  
Laser Melting ◽  
Powder Bed ◽  
Part Quality ◽  
Melt Pool ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Am Processes

Additive Manufacturing (AM) processes enable their deployment in broad applications from aerospace to art, design, and architecture. Part quality and performance are the main concerns during AM processes execution that the achievement of adequate characteristics can be guaranteed, considering a wide range of influencing factors, such as process parameters, material, environment, measurement, and operators training. Investigating the effects of not only the influential AM processes variables but also their interactions and coupled impacts are essential to process optimization which requires huge efforts to be made. Therefore, numerical simulation can be an effective tool that facilities the evaluation of the AM processes principles. Selective Laser Melting (SLM) is a widespread Powder Bed Fusion (PBF) AM process that due to its superior advantages, such as capability to print complex and highly customized components, which leads to an increasing attention paid by industries and academia. Temperature distribution and melt pool dynamics have paramount importance to be well simulated and correlated by part quality in terms of surface finish, induced residual stress and microstructure evolution during SLM. Summarizing numerical simulations of SLM in this survey is pointed out as one important research perspective as well as exploring the contribution of adopted approaches and practices. This review survey has been organized to give an overview of AM processes such as extrusion, photopolymerization, material jetting, laminated object manufacturing, and powder bed fusion. And in particular is targeted to discuss the conducted numerical simulation of SLM to illustrate a uniform picture of existing nonproprietary approaches to predict the heat transfer, melt pool behavior, microstructure and residual stresses analysis.

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

2014 ◽  
Vol 136 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Bo Cheng ◽  
Steven Price ◽  
James Lydon ◽  
Kenneth Cooper ◽  
Kevin Chou
Keyword(s):  
Thermal Conductivity ◽  
Electron Beam ◽  
Additive Manufacturing ◽  
Thermal Characteristics ◽  
Pool Size ◽  
Process Temperature ◽  
Thermal Imager ◽  
Powder Bed ◽  
Melt Pool ◽  
Melt Pool Size

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.

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

2016 ◽  
Vol 232 (9) ◽  
pp. 1615-1627 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bo Cheng ◽  
Kevin Chou
Keyword(s):  
Thermal Conductivity ◽  
Electron Beam ◽  
Thermal Properties ◽  
Additive Manufacturing ◽  
Melting Point ◽  
Thermal Property ◽  
Manufacturing Process ◽  
Powder Bed ◽  
Melt Pool ◽  
Melt Pool Size

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.

A Comparison of the Thermo-Fluid Properties of Ti-6Al-4V Melt Pools Formed by Laser and Electron-Beam Powder-Bed Fusion Processes

2020 ◽  
Vol 143 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
M Shafiqur Rahman ◽  
Paul J. Schilling ◽  
Paul D. Herrington ◽  
Uttam K. Chakravarty
Keyword(s):  
Electron Beam ◽  
Numerical Model ◽  
Cooling Rate ◽  
Liquid Velocity ◽  
Full Density ◽  
Powder Bed Fusion ◽  
Powder Bed ◽  
Melt Pool ◽  
Fluid Properties ◽  
Simulation Results

Abstract Powder-bed fusion (PBF) process is a subdivision of additive manufacturing (AM) technology where a heat source at a controlled speed selectively fuses regions of a powder-bed material to form three-dimensional (3D) parts in a layer-by-layer fashion. Two of the most commercialized and powerful PBF methods for fabricating full-density metallic parts are the laser PBF (L-PBF) and electron beam PBF (E-PBF) processes. In this study, a multiphysics-based 3D numerical model is developed to compare the thermo-fluid properties of Ti-6Al-4V melt pools formed by the L-PBF and E-PBF processes. The temperature-dependent properties of Ti-6Al-4V alloy and the parameters for the laser and electron beams are incorporated in the model as the user-defined functions (UDFs). The melt-pool geometry and its thermo-fluid behavior are investigated using the finite volume (FV) method, and results for the variations of temperature, thermo-physical properties, velocity, geometry of the melt pool, and cooling rate in the two processes are compared under similar irradiation conditions. For an irradiance level of 26 J/mm3 and a beam interaction time of 1.212 ms, simulation results show that the L-PBF process gives a faster cooling rate (1. 5 K/μs) than that in the E-PBF process (0.74 K/μs). The magnitude of liquid velocity in the melt pool is also higher in L-PBF than that in E-PBF. The numerical model is validated by comparing the simulation results for the melt-pool geometry with the PBF experimental results and comparing the numerical melt-front position with the analytical solution for the classical Stephan problem of melting of a phase-change material (PCM).

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

2014 ◽  
Vol 136 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven Price ◽  
Bo Cheng ◽  
James Lydon ◽  
Kenneth Cooper ◽  
Kevin Chou
Keyword(s):  
Electron Beam ◽  
Additive Manufacturing ◽  
Surface Morphology ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Thermal Characteristics ◽  
Beam Current ◽  
Process Temperature ◽  
Powder Bed ◽  
Melt Pool ◽  
Melt Pool Size

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.

Thermomechanical Investigation of Overhang Fabrications in Electron Beam Additive Manufacturing

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bo Cheng ◽  
Ping Lu ◽  
Kevin Chou
Keyword(s):  
Electron Beam ◽  
Additive Manufacturing ◽  
Residual Stresses ◽  
Heat Dissipation ◽  
Element Model ◽  
Full Density ◽  
Support Structures ◽  
Powder Bed ◽  
Thermomechanical Process ◽  
Root Cause

Electron beam additive manufacturing (EBAM) is one of powder-bed-fusion additive manufacturing processes that are capable of making full density metallic components. EBAM has a great potential in various high-value, small-batch productions in biomedical and aerospace industries. In EBAM, because a build part is immersed in the powder bed, ideally the process would not require support structures for overhang geometry. However, in practice, support structures are indeed needed for an overhang; without it, the overhang area will have defects such as warping, which is due to the complex thermomechanical process in EBAM. In this study, a thermomechanical finite element model has been developed to simulate temperature and stress fields when building a simple overhang in order to examine the root cause of overhang warping. It is found that the poor thermal conductivity of Ti-6Al-4V powder results in higher temperatures, also slower heat dissipation, in an overhang area, in EBAM builds. The retained higher temperatures in the area above the powder substrate result in higher residual stresses in an overhang area, and lower powder porosity may reduce the residual stresses associated with building an overhang.

scholarly journals Influence of Microstructure and Defects on Mechanical Properties of AISI H13 Manufactured by Electron Beam Powder Bed Fusion

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Moritz Kahlert ◽  
Florian Brenne ◽  
Malte Vollmer ◽  
Thomas Niendorf
Keyword(s):  
Mechanical Properties ◽  
Electron Beam ◽  
Additive Manufacturing ◽  
Internal Cooling ◽  
Layer By Layer ◽  
Powder Bed Fusion ◽  
Powder Bed ◽  
Cooling Channels ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
Aisi H13

AbstractElectron beam powder bed fusion (E-PBF) is a well-known additive manufacturing process. Components are realized based on layer-by-layer melting of metal powder. Due to the high degree of design freedom, additive manufacturing came into focus of tooling industry, especially for tools with sophisticated internal cooling channels. The present work focuses on the relationships between processing, microstructure evolution, chemical composition and mechanical properties of a high alloyed tool steel AISI H13 (1.2344, X40CrMoV5-1) processed by E-PBF. The specimens are free of cracks, however, lack of fusion defects are found upon use of non-optimized parameters finally affecting the mechanical properties detrimentally. Specimens built based on suitable parameters show a relatively fine grained bainitic/martensitic microstructure, finally resulting in a high ultimate strength and an even slightly higher failure strain compared to conventionally processed and heat treated AISI H13.

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