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Multi-physics modeling of grain growth during solidification in electron beam additive manufacturing of Inconel 718...

by Shardul Kamat, Xuxiao Li, Benjamin C Stump, Alexander J Plotkowski, Wenda Tan
Publication Type
Journal
Journal Name
Modelling and Simulation in Materials Science and Engineering
Publication Date
Page Number
015002
Volume
31
Issue
1

While experimental work has shown promising results regarding control of additive manufacturing metal grain structure, the effects of processing parameters on the grain structure is difficult to understand and predict from experiment alone. To this end, a modeling framework is developed which sequentially couples a macro-scale, semi-analytic thermal model, and a meso-scale, cellular automata-based microstructure model. This framework is applied to electron beam additive manufacturing of Inconel 718 using a complex spot scan pattern. The model shows that, with the same scan pattern, variations in the spot time and electron-beam current produce thermal histories with significant spatial and temporal differences, which then produce complex solidification conditions from the interplay between molten pools in the same layer and subsequent layers, resulting in vastly different grain structures. It is noted that the framework can significantly reduce the computational expenses for coupled thermal-metallurgical problems, and has the potential to be used for component level problems.