Novel Accelerated Thermo-Mechanical LPBF Modelling Using an Effective Heat Source

The laser Power-bed Fusion (LPBF) process suffers from the induced residual stresses in printed parts due to the inherent high-temperature gradient during the process. A trial-and-error experimental approach would be inefficient for minimizing the residual stresses. Therefore, numerical modelling and simulation are beneficial tools for predicting residual stresses and deformation of LPBF printed parts. However, the computational cost for conducting large-scale thermo-mechanical LPBF modelling is extremely expensive. In this presentation, a novel thermo-mechanical model is developed that incorporates the effective heat flux for accelerating the LPBF process simulation. The residual stresses and deformation of the cube and cantilever geometries are predicted for a various range of process parameters. X-ray analyzer and optical scanner devices are used to validate the simulation results. The simulation results demonstrate that implementing the effective heat flux reduces computational time while providing acceptable accuracy.