General Aspects of a Methodology for Inverse Thermal Analysis of Drop-by-Drop Liquid-Metal Deposition

A methodology for inverse thermal analysis of drop-by-drop liquid-metal deposition is presented. This methodology is constructed according to the general physical characteristics of direct digital manufacturing processes that employ drop-by-drop, bead-by-bead, layer-by-layer melt deposition on a substrate. The formal structure of the methodology follows from a specific definition of the inverse heat transfer problem, which is well modeled for inverse analysis of heat deposition processes. This definition is based on the assumption of the availability of information concerning spatially distributed boundary and constraint values. This information would be obtained, in principle, from both experimental measurements obtained in the laboratory, as well as numerical simulations performed using models having been constructed employing basic theory.