International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 108 (2017) 24082416

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International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijhmt

Heat transfer and phase transition in the selective laser melting process
Yingli Li a,b, Kun Zhou a,, Shu Beng Tor a, Chee Kai Chua a, Kah Fai Leong a
a
Singapore Centre for 3D Printing, School of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, 50 Nanyang Avenue, Singapore 639798, Singapore
b
School of Traffic & Transportation Engineering, Central South University, Changsha 410082, PR China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: This paper investigates the heat transfer and phase transition during the selective laser melting (SLM)
Received 8 October 2016 process under a moving volumetric heat source. Specifically, our objective is to study the heating, melt-
Received in revised form 21 January 2017 ing, vaporization and cooling processes. The model initiatively incorporates a phase function to differen-
Accepted 23 January 2017
tiate the powder phase, melting liquid phase, dense solid phase and vaporized gas phase. The dependence
of material properties on temperature and phase is also accounted for. The model involves the volume
shrinkage induced by the density change during the melting process. The problem is formulated using
Keywords:
the heat transfer equation and solved by the finite difference method. The results show the detailed tem-
Selective laser melting
Additive manufacture
perature evolution during the SLM process. The phase transition of the material can be tracked and the
3D printing melting pool can be predicted according to the phase function. The process parameter study reveals that
Rapid prototyping the melting pool with low scan velocity or high laser power has large width and length, and deep pen-
etration. The unified model proves neglecting of vaporization or temperature dependence of material
properties leads to results overestimating the shape and volume of the melting pool.
2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Selective laser melting (SLM) is a type of additive manufactur-
ing process that uses three-dimensional (3D) computer aided
design (CAD) data as a digital information source and energy in
the form of a high-power laser beam to create metal components
by selectively fusing fine metallic powders together [13]. The
SLM technique [47] holds a great potential for the rapid manufac-
turing of high-quality engineering metal components that cannot
be easily fabricated by other conventional processing methods.
The quality of the product built by SLM is significantly affected
by its process parameters such as the laser power and scan speed.
Undesirable effects such as delamination and voids in the final pro-
duct caused by inadequate laser power penetration or overheating
can be minimized by properly controlling or optimizing these pro-
cess parameters. A good understanding or prediction of the tem-
perature field of the powder bed and the underneath substrate or
proceeding layers could help to achieve such control and
optimization.
Investigation of the temperature evolution phenomena in SLM
have drawn extensive attention. Hussein et al. [8] predict the tem-
perature and stress fields of stainless steel 316L using the finite
element method (FEM). Yin et al. [9] studied the effect of powder
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: kzhou@ntu.edu.sg (K. Zhou).
transition on the melt pool dimension. Verhaeghe et al. [10] stud-
ied the effect of the vaporization phenomenon on temperature dis-
tribution. Papadakis et al. [11] studied the thermo-mechanical
effect. Gusarov [12] investigated the temperature distribution of
the laser-powder interaction zone by considering the volumetric
heat source. Loh et al. [13,14] analyzed the effect of the laser beam
profile on the melt width and melt penetration of the molten mate-
rial. Wu et al. [15] achieved test specimens with high density by
optimizing the process parameters based on modeling results.
However, most of the previous works have focused only on the
quasi-steady-state solution of the heat transfer problem. The pre-
sent work develops a model to study both the transient and steady
states of the temperature evolution. An SLM-printed object is com-
posed of layers and tracks, and solidification of every track involves
transient evolution of temperature, thus the transient analysis of
temperature is of great significance. A phase function is introduced
to track the various phase transitions including melting and vapor-
ization. The powder layer shrinks in volume during melting as the
molten metal seeps through pores. If the energy density deposited
is high, vaporization will occur to the molten metal when the boil-
ing point is exceeded. Therefore, this study accounts for shrinkage
and vaporization. The horizontal fluid flow in the molten pool dri-
ven by the surface tension for shape evolution of the liquid bath is
neglected. Findings of this investigation provide better under-
standing of the SLM process and constructive guidance for optimal
process parameter setting.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijheatmasstransfer.2017.01.093
0017-9310/ 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 Y. Li et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 108 (2017) 24082416 2409

2. Problem formulations x q^ , where q^ is the hemispherical reflectivity of the powder

material in the dense form. The isotropic scattering phase function
In the SLM process, a laser beam is scanning with the uniform Pl0 ; l 1 is taken in the case of spherical metallic particles [19].
velocity v over a selective region of a material powder bed of thick- The boundary condition for the radiation intensity Iz; h on the
ness L. The heated powder particles melt and coalesce into a thin powder top surface z 0 specifies normally collimated incident
molten track that solidifies in the wake of the beam. Fig. 1 presents radiation and the specular reflection with reflectivity q ^ is assumed
the printing process of a single track by SLM in the Cartesian coor- for Iz; h on the substrate top surface z = L.
dinate system (x; y; z). The absorptivity A is defined as the ratio of the net radiative
In order to track the temperature evolution during the SLM pro- energy flux density Q absorbed by the powder bed to the laser
cess, the heat conduction equation at an arbitrary point in the power density Q 0 . According to the two-flux method, Q can be
laser-powder interaction zone can be written as [16] obtained from the radiation intensity Iz; h, which is determined



 by the radiation transfer Eq. (2) and the corresponding boundary
@ qH @ qH @ @T @ @T @ @T
w k k k U; 1 conditions. Therefore, the absorptivity A is obtained by [12]
@t @z @x @x @y @y @z @z
Q q^ a 
where T is the temperature of point x; y; z in the laser-powder An ^ 2 ek 1  ae2an 1 ae2an 
1  q
Q 0 4q ^  3D
interaction zone at time t, H the enthalpy, q the mass density, k
^ e2k f1 a  q
3 q ^ 1  ae2akn
the thermal conductivity, and U the volumetric heat source. Due
to the porosity of the powder bed, the top surface location of the  31  q
^ en  q
^ en2k
^ 1 ae2akn g 
1  a  q ; 3
melting pool will move downwards after the escape of gas from 4q^ 3
the powder gap, named as shrinkage. The variable w denotes the
shrink velocity of the melting zone as porosity equals to zero within where
the liquid pool after melting [17]. The horizontal fluid flow in the D 1  a1  a  q ^ 1 ae2ak  1 a1 a  q
^ 1  ae2ak ;
melting pool driven by the surface tension for shape evolution of q
the liquid bath is neglected. k bL; a 1  q ^ ; n bz:
The volumetric heat source U which is the energy absorbed by 4
the powder from the laser incident irradiation consists of two
parts. One part is the incident radiation absorbed by the surface In Eq. (4), n denotes the dimensionless coordinate and k is the opti-
layer of the powder particles which are loosely deposited in the cal penetration thickness.
bed. The other part is the incident radiation that penetrates The volumetric heat source of the powder bed absorbed from
through the inter-powder spaces (pores) into underneath powders the laser power is
and interacts with them. This is different from the radiation
dQ dA
absorption by a dense layer in the block form which does not allow U bQ 0 : 5
the radiation penetration to its underneath layer. dz dn
Consider that the powder layer is irradiated by the laser beam The power density Q 0 of the laser beam is approximated by a
with the power density Q 0 at the normal incidence. The normal Gauss distribution of full radius R. During the SLM process, the
collimated incident beam is scattered inside the powders and gives laser beam is moving at a constant velocity v along the positive
rise to radiation propagation in all the directions, characterized by direction of x axial. Hence, the powder density considering the
the angular radiation intensity Iz; h at the depth z and the polar movement is given as
angle h. The powder base is considered as a homogeneous absorb-
P fxv st2 y2 g
; 0 < x  v s  t2 y2 < R;
ing scattering medium. The angular radiation intensity Iz; h 
Q0 2
e R2 6
accounting for the absorptivity of the powder bed can be obtained pR
from the radiation transfer equation [18]: with v being the moving velocity of the laser beam and s being the
 Z 1  lag time factor.
@Iz; l x
l b Pl0 ; lIz; l0 dl0  Iz; l : 2 The heat resource U leads to the formation of a melting pool.
@z 2 1
After the laser beam moves away, the liquid melting pool cools
In Eq. (2), l cos h and l0 cos h0 , where h and h0 are radiation and resolidifies to form the fully densified part. A phase function
propagation angles. b is the extinction coefficient, x is the scatter- / is introduced to track the phase transition and account for the
ing albedo, and Pl0 ; l is the scattering phase function. Assume material properties in difference phases. The phase function / is

v
Laser beam z
y
z
x Shrinkage
y Melting pool

Powder L
Powder layer
Penetration

Substrate or proceeding layers Solid

Fig. 1. Schematic of the SLM process.

2410 Y. Li et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 108 (2017) 24082416

equal to 0 in the powder phase, 1 in the molten liquid phase and 2 Then, the governing equation can be obtained by substituting
in the dense phase. The phase function / = 3 is used to model the Eqs. (5), (8), and (10) into Eq. (1), that is
vaporization and volume shrinkage of the melting pool caused by



@ qcT @ qcT @ @T @ @T @ @T
density change during melting. Then, the phase function of the w k k k
powder bed can be expressed as @t @z @x @x @y @y @z @z
8 @ q DH @ qDH
> 0 T < T m Powder phase U w : 12
>
>
<
@t @z
1 T m < T < T v Liquid melting phase
/x;y;z; T : The boundary conditions and the initial conditions are intro-
>
> 2 T < T m Dense solid phase after melting and cooling
>
: duced to solve the heat conduction Eq. (12). The initial tempera-
3 T P T v Vapor phase or shrinkage ture condition is
7
Tx; y; z; 0 T 0 ; 13
where T m and T v denotes the melting and boiling temperature
respectively. Considering that the temperature ranges for the pow- and the initial condition for the phase function is
der phase and dense phase in Eq. (7) overlap, the judgment criterion 
0 0 < z < L Powder bed
for the phase function / = 0 or 1 is whether the temperature of the /x; y; z; T : 14
1 L 6 z 6 Z Substract or formed part
point has ever exceeded the melting point since interaction with
the laser beam. The computation domain of the heat conduction problem is
The enthalpy H in Eq. (1) is expressed as a sum of the sensible taken as fx; y; zj  X 6 x 6 X; 0 6 y 6 Y; 0 6 z 6 Zg. Due to the
heat Hs and the latent heat DH : symmetry with respect to the center plane (y = 0), the temperature
H Hs DH; 8 field is computed on only half of the domain (y > 0). The bound-
R aries x X, y Y and z Z are assumed to be isolated walls, that

where Hs cdT c T with c being the specific heat. The latent is,
heat DH in Eq. (8) is given by
8 @T
T < T m  dT 1 ; / 0; 2 x X; y 0; Y; zZ: k 0: 15
>
> 0 @n
>
> Hm
>
> T m  dT 1 6 T 6 T m dT 1 ; mushy region
< 2 In Eq. (15), the symbol n is the normal to the corresponding
DH H m T m dT 1 < T < T v  dT 2 ; / 1 ; 9 face, i.e. n x; y or z. The temperature gradient @T=@n 0 indicates
>
>
>
> Hm H2v T v  dT 2 6 T 6 T v dT 2 ; mushy region no heat transformation across the boundary. No heat travels across
>
>
: the plane y = 0 due to the symmetry about y axis.
Hm H v T v dT 2 < T; / 3
At the top surface of the domain z 0, that is the laser radiation
In Eq. (9), Hm and Hv are the latent heats at phase transitions of surface, the natural boundary condition is taken as
melting and boiling respectively. The phase transition process is
@T ^  T 0 r
assumed to occur over a range of phase transition temperature, z0:k q hT ^ ^eT 4  T 40 : 16
named as mushy region. Eq. (9) includes mushy regions @z
T m  dT 1 6 T < T m dT 1 and T v  dT 2 6 T 6 T v dT 2 for the phase In the right side of Eq. (16), the term q refers to the heat flux
transition at melting and boiling. ^  T 0 is the convection boundary, where
intensity. The term hT
The thermal conductivity and specific heat of metal vary in the ^ is the surface convective heat transfer coefficient. The last term
h
temperature above the room temperature. Thus, the temperature
and phase dependence of the material properties have to be con- r^ ^eT 4  T 40 represents the radiation heat transfer, where r^ is the
sidered. Let subscripts p, l, s, and v denote the material properties Stefan-Boltzmann constant (r ^ 5:670  108 W=m2 K4 ) constant
in the powder phase, molten liquid phase, dense solid dense phase and ^e is the emissivity.
and vapor phase. For instance, cp , cl , cs , and cv denotes the specific The finite difference scheme is adopted to discretize the coordi-
heat of the material in powder, molten liquid, dense solid and nate space and time history in order to solve the partial differential
vapor phases. The specific heat for powder phase cp is assumed governing Eq. (12) and the associated boundary conditions in Eqs.
to be cp 1  ecs , where e denotes the porosity. (15) and (16). The space computational domain is divided into
Similarly, kp , kl , ks and kv are the thermal conductivities for dif- N x  N y  N z rectangular cells with the sizes of dxi , dyj , and dzk
ferent phases. Thermal conductivity of metallic powder kp is about with (i 1; 2; . . . ; N x ; j 1; 2; . . . ; N y ; k 1; 2; . . . ; N z ). In order to
100 times less than that of dense material ks [20]. Experimental get an accurate result, a non-uniform grid mesh is generated by
works and estimations in the literature [21] suggest that the effec- introducing dxi e1 dxi1 , dyj e2 dyj1 , dzk e3 dzk1 . The time
tive thermal conductivity in the presence of thermocapilary flow is step dt is restricted by the stability condition for explicit schemes
at least twice the stationary melt kl aks , where a is the correction and is of the order of 107 s. The numerical model is tested to
factor. ensure its convergence and accuracy.
The model in Eq. (1) also includes the volume shrinkage caused
by the density change from powder to liquid melting pool. In the
3. Numerical simulation and discussion
liquid melting phase, the velocity w in Eq. (1) induced by shrinkage
is expressed as
( In order to validate the modeling approach in this study, Table 1

@s
1 z
e z 6 s; / 1 compares the melting pool size for Aluminum alloy 6061 obtained
@t
w s
; 10 by the current method with experimental results [13] by setting
0 Z > s; / 0; 2
the corresponding material and process parameters the same as
where sx; y; t is the vertical location of solid-liquid interface, those in the experiment. Three sets of SLM process parameters
which is determined by the temperature distribution. The top sur- are considered: high laser power with high scan speed (HH), low
face of the powder lowers after melting, and the shape of the top laser power with low scan speed (LL) and low laser power with
surface is described by s0 , which is determined as high scan speed (LH). The high and low laser powers refer to
350 W and 150 W respectively, while the high and low scan speeds
s0 x; y; z; t esx; y; z; t: 11
are 1140 mm/s and 500 mm/s, respectively. The spot diameter of
 Y. Li et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 108 (2017) 24082416
Table 1
Comparison of present results with experiment results in Ref. [13].
Penetration (lm) Experimental results
Present results
Width (lm) Experimental results
Present results
the laser beam is 80 lm and the single lines are scanned with a
layer of 50 lm powder. The comparison demonstrates that the
proposed numerical model can provide good predictions on the
penetration and width.
In order to simulate the existence of the empty space created by
shrinkage of the powder bed after solidification, assume the ther-
mal conductivity in the empty space after shrinkage is equal to
zero. The empty space generated due to vaporization of the molten
liquid exceeding the boiling temperature is treated the same way
as the shrinkage. When the temperature exceeds the boiling point
T v , assume the temperature does not increase any more.
In the following simulations, the material properties in refer-
ence [22] are employed for the stainless 316L steel at dense solid
or liquid phases. The thermal conductivity of the powder is
kp = 0.3 W/Mk, the reflectivity q ^ = 0.7, and the optical thickness
k 2 [12]. Herein, the porosity e of the powder bed is approxi-
mated as 0.4. The initial preheated temperature T 0 = 473 K, melting
temperature T m = 1700 K, and boiling temperature T v = 3200 K.
The latent heat of melting Hm = 2.18 GJ/m3 and for vaporization
Hv = 47.5 GJ/m3. Parameters for the natural boundary conditions
are ^e = 0.2, and h^ = 12 W/m2 K.
In the SLM process, the powder thickness L = 50 lm, the laser
beam power P varies from 50 W to 200 W and the range for scan
speed v is 50250 mm/s. Process parameters P = 125 W and
v = 150 mm/s are the default SLM process parameter setting for
the following simulation unless otherwise specified. Full radius
of the Gaussian laser beam is R = 40 lm.
As the energy of the laser beam is absorbed by the powder bed,
the temperature of the point under irradiation increases with time
due to thermal conduction. When the laser beam moves away, the
temperature decreases. Fig. 2 presents the heating and cooling
sequence of three points at x axis located at x = 0 lm (solid curve),
70 lm (dashed curve) and 140 lm (dotted curve). t0 is the time
required to heat up the powder at origin x = 0 lm. Note that the
solid curves exceed the melting point 1700 K, but does not reach
the boiling point 3200 K; whereas the temperatures of the other
two curves surge from the preheated temperature to the melting
point, and finally reach the boiling temperature. The point is
assumed to be melted and changed into liquid phase after its tem-
perature surpasses the melting temperature. After the temperature
decreases below the melting temperature, the material solidifies.
Although the specific heat and thermal conductivity of the solidi-
fied 316L steel is much higher than those in the powder phase,
the heating rate is much sharper than the cooling rate, due to the
heat influence of the laser beam movement. Movement of the laser
beam towards the positive direction of x axis leads to heat accumu-
lation at the wake of the laser beam.
The powder experiences phase transition with the temperature
evolution. The phase function defined in Eq. (7) is presented in
Fig. 3 from different views. The gray region represents / = 0 for
the powder phase, the pink one is / = 1 for the melting liquid
phase, the blue denotes the dense solid region with / = 2, and
the white indicates the empty or removal of material because of
the shrinkage and vaporization. The interface at z = 50 lm is
the interface between powder bed and the substrate. A uniform
and straight solidified track is formed as depicted in Fig. 3(a).
2411
HH LL LH
43.8 32.1 22.2
42.2 34.3 24.1
140 126 97
144.1 128.2 98.2
3500
x =0 m
x =70 m
3000
x =140 m
2500
2000
T (K)
1500
1000
500
0.0 t0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5
t (ms)
Fig. 2. Temperature evolution of three points A (0, 0, 0), B (70, 0, 0), and C (140, 0, 0).
Fig. 3(b) shows that there exist both excessive vaporization and
unmelted powder around the interface at the beginning of the
SLM process, which is detriment for the bonding of the new track
to the substrate or proceeding layers. At the steady state, the melt-
ing pool penetrates into the substrate and reaches the depth of
78 lm (shown in Fig. 3(b) and (c)), which is favorable for decreas-
ing the possibility of delamination. Penetration of the melting pool
into the substrate also increases the wetting ability of the melting
pool, reducing the occurrence of balling phenomenon.
To optimize the process parameters and avoid defects in the
SLM process, The melting pool shape is one of our major concerns.
Fig. 4 shows the melting pool shape together with the temperature
gradient at t = 2.8 ms. The two contours present the isotherms of
melting and boiling temperatures. The width and length of the
melting pool is 134.6 lm and 339.6 lm from Fig. 4(a) and the
depth of the melting pool is 78 lm by observation of Fig. 4(b).
The arrows show the magnitude and direction of the tempera-
ture gradient. The surface tension of the melting pool is a function
of temperature. The top surface of the liquid melting pool is pre-
sented to be concave in Figs. 3 and 4(b) and also in the upcoming
figures. The surface tension gradient and buoyancy force will drive
the melting fluid flow to form flat or even sphere surface. Once the
geometry of the melting pool is determined, whether balling phe-
nomenon will occur can be predicted by the stability condition in
reference [23].
To better understand the temperature distribution of the pow-
der bed, Fig. 5 shows the temperature profile in the x-y plane at dif-
ferent moments. The black circle is the projection circumference of
the laser beam. In Fig. 5(a), the temperature profiles are not exact
circles due to the influence of the left boundary and transient tem-
perature evolution. The unsmoothy in the isotherm of 3000 K is
caused by the discontinuity of enthalpy and latent heat during
boiling shown in Fig. 5(a)(e). The temperature profiles enlarge
and change into ellipses with time increasing. The reason that
the shape of the temperature contours are ellipses instead of cir-
cles is the heat accumulation in the movement of the laser beams
as shown in the melting pool in Fig. 4. Once the shape of the tem-
perature profile become stable and does not change with time, it is
2412 Y. Li et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 108 (2017) 24082416

called steady state. In most literature, only the temperature field of

the steady state is investigated. Experiments show that delamina-
tion and warping are most likely to occur at the edge of the SLM
products, that is, at the beginning or ending of the tracks. It is also
evidenced by Fig. 3 where the penetration of the new track to the
substrate at the beginning of the track is not as deep as that in the
center of the track. Hence, study of the transient behavior of the
=3 heat transfer is of great significance.
Then, one investigate the temperature distribution along x axis
as illustrated in Fig. 6 with P = 125 W and v = 150 mm/s. The flat
=0 platform in the curves denotes the highest temperature at the
moment, which indicates the location of the laser beam. The tem-
perature profile at the right part of the curves presents the interac-
tion distance of the powder bed to the laser beam. The temperature
profile at the left part shows steeper gradient than that at the right
side. The laser beam is moving along the x axis and the powder bed
at the left side of the laser beam is located in the wake of the laser
(a)
beam. Residual heat remains at the wake of the laser beam such
that the cooling rate is slower than the heating rate in right side
=3 =0 of the peak. Take the curve for t = 2.8 ms for example, when the
laser beam is located at x = 392 lm, the temperature at origin
=1
=2 (x = 0 lm) is around 1000 K and the temperature at x = 550 lm is
at the preheated temperature.
In the following Figs. 7 and 8, the effects of process parameters
on the shape of the melting pool are addressed. Fig. 7 plots the
(b) melting pool at x-y and y-z planes with different scan velocities
and laser power of P = 125 W. By comparing Fig. 7(a) and (b) with
Fig. 4, the melting pool in Fig. 7(a) has larger width and length, and
=3 =0 penetrates into the substrate deeper, resulting in good bonding
=1 with the substrate. As the scan velocity is slower, there is more
=2 heat accumulated such that the powder absorbs more heat energy.
Fig. 7(a) shows that more steel powder is changed into vapor
(white region), which may stick on the wall of the chamber after
cooling.
With a higher scan speed, the melting pool is much smaller in
(c) Fig. 7(b) than that depicted in Fig. 7(a). The penetration of sub-
Fig. 3. Phase function distribution in (a) x-y plane, (b) x-z plane and (c) y-z plane.
strate as shown in Fig. 7(b) is 16.74 lm which is insufficient to
bond the newly built track to the substrate. Besides, the melting
pool with small contact area is more likely to spheredise.
Fig. 8 plots the effect of laser beam power on the size of the
melting pool with laser beam power of P = 50 W and P = 200 W
and scan velocity of v = 150 mm/s. In Fig. 8(a), the melting pool is
small and the penetration to the substrate is insufficient, similar
to the case in Fig. 7(b). The difference is that high scan speed results
in a longer tail of the melting pool in x-y plane in Fig. 7(b). Energy
density deposited has to be sufficient in order to ensure not only
the melting of the powder but also the underlying substrate as
both have to fuse together to avoid weak bonding. Weak bonding
between layers is the source of cracks. If the energy input is insuf-
ficient for the layer of powder bed, the lack of fusion and porosity
at the layer boundaries density will be resulted.
The penetration of the melting pool into the substrate depicted
in Fig. 8(b) is desirable. However, higher energy input can cause
high temperatures, overheating, boiling and vaporization of mate-
rial in the laser interaction zone and irregular track formation. The
drawback of this set of process parameters is that a lot of the steel
material is vaporized. If the vapor of steel does not be full blow
away, it may exist in the formed sample and cause void. Thus,
the process parameters have to be optimized in order to manufac-
ture samples with good quality. Optimization of the parameters by
numerical simulation is much less costly than repetitive experi-
mental testing.
The above results are obtained by the overall model considering
all the mentioned effects. The effect of shrinkage, vaporization, and
Fig. 4. Melting pool shape and temperature gradient in (a) x-y plane and (b) y-z temperature dependence of material properties on the interfaces of
plane. SLM process are investigated in the following. Fig. 9 presents the
 Y. Li et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 108 (2017) 24082416 2413

Fig. 5. Temperature profile in x-y plane at t = 0.56, 1.12, 1.68, 2.24 and 2.8 ms.

comparison of the interfaces of the solidified track or liquid melt-

4000
ing pool with/without considering the shrinkage. The regions for
t =0.93 ms t =1.87 ms t =2.8 ms
3500 difference phases and interfaces are similar to Fig. 3. The region
from z = 0 to z = eL denotes removal of the material because of
3000 the volume shrinkage after melting, and the region from z = eL
to the top surface is the amount of material vaporized. As the laser
2500
beam is moving along the x axis, the right part of the solid-liquid
T (K)

2000 interface is the melting pool and the left side is the solidified
new track.
1500 Note that at the beginning of the track the penetration of melt-
ing pool is not as deep as that when it reaches steady state. Thus,
1000
when printing the edge of a product the power should be set a little
500 higher than that for printing within the product.
The melting pool obtained by considering the shrinkage is dee-
-100 0 100 200 300 400 500
per than the one without shrinkage. Involvement of the shrinkage
x (m)
velocity w in Eq. (12) leads to an arc bottom of the melting pool
Fig. 6. Temperature distribution along x direction at different time t = 0.93, 1.87 (solid curves), whereas the melting pool without shrinkage has a
and 2.8 ms. flat bottom (dashed curves). The shrinkage also results in a wider
2414 Y. Li et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 108 (2017) 24082416

Fig. 7. Effect of scan velocity (a) v = 50 mm/s and (b) v = 250 mm/s on the melting pool shape with P = 125 W. The melting pool for v = 50 mm/s has width of 240.4 lm,
penetration of 80.7 lm, and length of 378.9 lm. The width of the melting pool in (b) is108.36 lm, the penetration is 16.74 lm, and the length is 282.2 lm.

Fig. 8. Effect of laser beam power (a) P = 50 W and (b) P = 200 W and v = 150 mm/s on the melting pool shape. The melting pool in (a) has width of 99.04 lm, penetration of
9.62 lm, and length of 149.3 lm. The width of the melting pool in (b) is 168.82 lm, the penetration is 45.96 lm, and the length is 393.67 lm.

melting pool as denoted with solid curves. The difference in the
molten depth shown in Fig. 9 is not as magnificent as the compar-
ison of Figs. 5 and 6 in Ref. [24]. The reason is that in the reference
the vaporization of the melting pool is neglected. A large portion of
the melting pool is removed by vaporization. In the following, the
effect of vaporization will be addressed.
Fig. 10 compares the results of interfaces with/ without consid-
ering vaporization. The case without considering vaporization
overestimates the depth of the solidified track. Fig. 10 shows a flat
platform at the top surface of the melting pool without vaporiza-
tion. As shown in Fig. 5, the center of the melting pool has the high-
est temperature and the part over boiling temperature vaporizes.
In experiment, the vaporization does occur and the fume can be
observed even with optimal process parameters.
In Fig. 11, one compares the results with temperature and phase
dependence of the material properties and those with constant
thermal conductivity k and specific heat c. The neglecting of tem-
perature dependence of material properties results in an overpre-
diction of the size and volume of the liquid pool. The melting
pool is larger than its actual shape and the volume of vaporization
 Y. Li et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 108 (2017) 24082416 2415

0
0
-10 Shrinkage
-20 -20
-30 Vaporization
-40 Top surface -40
z (m)

z (m)
-50 Powder
Liquid Substrate -60
-60 Solid
-70 -80
-80 Bottom surface
-90 With shrinkage -100
Without shrinkage Temperature and phase dependence of k and c
-100 Constant k and c
-100 0 100 200 300 400 500 -120
(a) x (m)
-150 -100 -50 0 50 100 1 5
y (m)

Fig. 11. Comparison of interfaces with constant and temperature dependent

0
material properties.

-20
evolution and phase transition during the SLM process. The results
showed the effect laser beam power and scan velocity on the shape
z (m)

-40 and size of the melting pool, which can be adopted for process
Powder
parameter optimization.
Substrate The results revealed some useful findings. Movement of the
-60
laser beam leads to heat accumulation at the wake of the laser
beam. The introduction of phase function enables us to track the
-80 With shrinkage phase transition of the material and determine the shape of the
Without shrinkage
melting pool. The temperature gradient is more drastic at the
-150 -100 -50 0 50 100 15
(b) heading direction of the laser beam than that at the wake of the
y (m) laser beam. The melting pool with low scan velocity or high laser
Fig. 9. Effect of shrinkage on the SLM process in (a) x-z plane and (b) y-z plane. power has larger width and length, and penetrates into the sub-
strate deeper, which also may lead to excessive vaporization. High
scan velocity or low laser powder leads to insufficient bonding of
the new track to the substrate. The shrinkage effect leads to a
0
wider melting pool. Modeling without considering vaporization
or temperature dependence of material properties overestimates
-20
the shape and volume of the melting pool.
-40
Acknowledgements
z (m)

-60
The authors would like to acknowledge the financial support
-80 from the National Research Foundation Medium Sized Center, Sin-
gapore through the Marine and Offshore Program.
-100
With vaporization References
-120
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