The Use of Thermomechanical Simulation in Additive Manufacturing
Fulvio Siciliano, Brian Allen and David Ferguson
Dynamic Systems Inc., Poestenkill, NY, USA 12140
fulvio@gleeble.com
Abstract
The use of thermomechanical simulation has been recently applied in additive manufacturing studies in a number of ways. The applications include (i) the simulation of thermal cycles during each material deposition pass (ii) study of microstructure evolution during additive manufacturing (iii) the simulation of post-deposition heat treatments (iv) high temperature mechanical testing of final materials. Simulation can be performed in virtually all metallic materials such as steels, stainless steels, aluminum alloys, titanium alloys as well as in superalloys such as Inconel family and others. This paper shows a compilation of examples where a Gleeble thermomechanical simulator can strongly support additive manufacturing studies in order to optimize production schedules and improve properties and quality of additive manufactured parts.
Keywords: thermomechanical simulation, additive manufacturing, process optimization, quality parts.