Grain structure based mechanical simulation for laser beam melting at part scale
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A thermo-mechanical model that considers the complex grain structures is introduced to simulate the Laser Powder Bed fusion (L-PBF) process at part scale. The Cellular Automaton (CA) method is employed to generate the grain structures based on a non-linear thermohydraulic analysis using a finite element–level set framework [1]. Subsequently, grain orientations are transported to a second mesh, where the mechanical analysis is performed using a crystal plasticity model for the nickel-based superalloy Inconel 718 (IN718). In this work, the properties of single crystal IN718 are characterized based on a power law model within a large temperature interval below the solidus temperature. Finally, thermo-mechanical simulations at the macro-scale are established with the super-layer multi-shot method [2]. This paper presents a viable method to integrate grain structure and mechanical behavior in macroscopic modeling. Furthermore, the effect of grain structures on the distribution of stress and distortion is discussed based on thermo-mechanical simulations.
