The Ti-6Al-4V lattice structure is widely used in the aerospace industry owing to its high specific strength, specific stiffness, and energy absorption. The quality, performance, and surface roughness of the additively manufactured parts are significantly dependent on various process parameters. Therefore, it is important to study process parameter optimization for relative density and surface roughness control. Here, the part density and surface roughness are examined according to the hatching space, laser power, and scan rotation during laser-powder bed fusion (LPBF), and the optimal process parameters for LPBF are investigated. It has high density and low surface roughness in the specific process parameter ranges of hatching space (0.06–0.12 mm), laser power (225–325 W), and scan rotation (15°). In addition, to investigate the compressive behavior of the lattice structure, a finite element analysis is performed based on the homogenization method. Finite element analysis using the homogenization method indicates that the number of elements decreases from 437,710 to 27 and the analysis time decreases from 3,360 to 9 s. In addition, to verify the reliability of this method, stress–strain data from the compression test and analysis are compared.
Citations
Ti-6Al-4V alloy has a wide range of applications, ranging from turbine blades that require smooth surfaces for aerodynamic purposes to biomedical implants, where a certain surface roughness promotes biomedical compatibility. Therefore, it would be advantageous if the high volumetric density is maintained while controlling the surface roughness during the LPBF of Ti-6Al-4V. In this study, the volumetric energy density is varied by independently changing the laser power and scan speed to document the changes in the relative sample density and surface roughness. The results where the energy density is similar but the process parameters are different are compared. For comparable energy density but higher laser power and scan speed, the relative density remained similar at approximately 99%. However, the surface roughness varies, and the maximum increase rate is approximately 172%. To investigate the cause of the increased surface roughness, a nonlinear finite element heat transfer analysis is performed to compare the maximum temperature, cooling rate, and lifetime of the melt pool with different process parameters.
In the present work, an explicit finite element analysis technique is introduced to analyze the thermal stress fields present in the additive manufacturing process. To this purpose, a finite element matrix formulation is derived from the equations of motion and continuity. The developed code, NET3D, is then applied to various sample problems including thermal stress development. The application of heat to an inclusion from an external source establishes an initial temperature from which heat flows to the surrounding body in the sample problems. The development of thermal stress due to the mismatch between the thermal strains is analyzed. As mass scaling can be used to shorten the computation time of explicit analysis, a mass scaling of 108 is employed here, which yields almost identical results to the quasi-static results.
Citations
Powder compaction is a continually and rapidly evolving technology where it is a highly developed method of manufacturing reliable components. To understand existing mechanisms for compaction, parameter investigation is required. Experimental investigations on powder compaction process, followed by numerical modeling of compaction are presented in this paper. The experimental work explores compression characteristics of soft and hard ductile powder materials. In order to account for deformation, fracture and movement of the particles, a discrete-finite element analysis model is defined to reflect the experimental data and to enable investigations on mechanisms present at the particle level. Effects of important simulation factors and process parameters, such as particle count, time step, particle discretization, and particle size on the powder compaction procedure have been explored.