Comparing Finite Element Capabilities for Metal Additive Manufacturing

Metal additive manufacturing (AM) is a rapidly maturing family of manufacturing techniques which promises transformational impacts due to geometric freedom and production flexibility. Metal AM has widespread applications in aerospace, nuclear, and biomedical industries, but work is needed to understand this technology before it can be incorporated into high-risk applications. Simultaneously, simulation tools to understand the stresses and distortions from the heating and cooling cycles associated with AM are also rapidly advancing. Use of these computational tools can reduce the experimental efforts needed to understand the process, structure, performance and properties of AM metals, but the quality and fidelity of these tools can be varied. In this work, two commercial tools were explored to investigate predictive capability with respect to geometric distortion and temperature profiles of an AM build. Experimental validation demonstrated that both finite element tools performed sufficiently for simple builds but were not identical in terms of computational time and difficulty of use. Models built using SolidWorks (selected based on assumed operator ease-of-use) became cumbersome in terms of computational speed and required significant effort to generate AM-type problems. This work demonstrates the challenges associated with software for certain manufacturing processes and follow-on considerations and efforts will be discussed.