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Thermo-mechanical Simulation of Additive Layer Manufacturing of Titanium

Aerospace structures

Conference Paper · September 2013

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Thermo-mechanical Simulation of Additive Layer Manufacturing
of Titanium Aerospace structures

N. Keller, F. Neugebauer, H. Xu, V. Ploshikhin

Airbus endowed chair for integrative simulation and engineering of materials and processes, University of Bre-
men, Bremen

1 Introduction

In aerospace engineering light weight constructions are mandatory as they reduce the amount
of required propellant and thus costs and CO2 emissions. Therefore a part design minimizing
mass while satisfying the functionality is desirable. Modern CAE software enables an effi-
cient topology optimization, which leads to the sufficient weight reduction. On the other hand,
the possibilities of manufacturing topology optimized parts are either limited or at great ex-
pense. For complex parts in aerospace multiple cost-intensive manufacturing processes are
necessary resulting in high effort and severe material waste. Parts need also to be constructed
from multiple components, which require additional connecting parts (e.g. for rivets and
bolts) and therefore additional weight. Additive Layer Manufacturing (ALM) allows the gen-
eration of these parts in one piece in only one manufacturing process with a high complexity
and filigree structures with preciseness down to 40µm [1]. However, ALM as a series of mi-
cro welding has the same difficulties like usual welding processes because of thermal strains
resulting in deformation and residual stress. The present paper presents first results of re-
search towards the development of ALM-process oriented thermo-mechanic simulations
based on the method of finite elements (FEM) aiming the prediction of residual stress and
deformation.

2 Additive Layer Manufacturing

The term “Additive Layer Manufacturing”

names several manufacturing processes for
manufacturing parts layer by layer [2]. For the
generation of (complex) metallic parts powder
based processes like “Selective Laser Melting”
(SLM) are often used. In powder deposition
processes alternatingly a thin layer of powder is
spread by a roller and exposed by a laser beam
following a pre-defined trajectory (scanning
strategy). By heat diffusion the molten layers
consolidate. After exposure of a layer the base
plate of the build chamber lowers and the next
layer of powder is applied. The repetition of
Figure 1: Principle of ALM processes
these steps generates the parts (figure 1). Fur-
thermore so-called support structures are also needed to ensure that the process heat can flow
to the base plate to avoid overheating.

Since SLM can be considered as a series of micro-welding processes [3], the same problems
in the context of residual stresses and deformations as in conventional welding arise. Thereby
the local energy input, high cool-down rates in combination with complex macroscopic ef-
fects due to part topology lead to an unknown distribution of residual stress [4]. After the pro-
cess the removal of the support structures results in redistribution of residual stresses and final
distortion of the manufactured part.

3 Numerical process simulation

In the recent decades the method of numerical process simulation has become an important
and powerful tool to predict residual stress and distortion in thermal manufacturing processes.
However, only few macroscopic approaches have been developed for prediction of residual
stress and distortion in the ALM process. For example [5], [6], [7] introduced a simulation
model for calculation of part distortion in additive manufacturing. The simulation results and
characteristics of generated simple parts showed significant agreement and hence where able
to show high potential of FEM simulations in the field of additive manufacturing. In [8] a
linear thermo-elastic model based on the finite-element method has been developed to simu-
late the electron beam melting process. Furthermore an adaptive mesh refinement strategy has
been implemented. In general most of the research has been done on simulation of (local)
thermal effects where models have been developed, which are able to investigate effects on
size of one layer or below [9] – [13].
The present paper is focussed on a similar macroscopic model like [5] and is based on the
finite element method. In addition it is including microscopic aspects by powder-bulk trans-
formation during the cooling procedure. Therefore a fully automated chain of computation
starting from the CAD data has been developed.

4 Simulation model

4.1 Process specific layer based meshing

A FEM Simulation of an ALM process needs to be able to reproduce the layerwise built up of
a part and a geometrical accurate representation of the part. For this purpose a mesh generator
that creates a layered mesh of hexahedral elements based on two-dimensional cross sections
of the part (slices) has been developed.
The approach consists of the following steps:

 Overlay of a two-dimensional grid with the sliced layers of the CAD where all seg-
ments have the size of the estimated elements. The segments of the grid which contain
volume of the part are the basis for the mesh.
  Detection of four points in those segments to get the nodes for the top face of the ele-
ment. Thereby the intersecting points of the sliced polygons with the grid define the
contour.
 Connection of these segments with the top faces of the previous layer extrudes the
face to a three-dimensional cubic element.

The two-dimensional cross sections are either directly provided by the ALM pre-processing
or can be obtained by intersecting the polygon faces in the CAD with severe parallel planes.
Figure 2 shows an example of the meshing process on a topology optimized bracket.

Figure 2: Layer based FE mesh of a topology optimized bracket

4.2 ALM process simulation

The process simulation method presented here is based on the assumption that geometric ef-
fects have a strong influence onto resulting residual stresses and deformations. Therefore in
an alternating process a full layer of elements is activated at once and a constant heat flux
density is provided on the whole layer for fractional amount of milliseconds. The heat flux
density and exposure time are chosen so that the temperature in the highest element layer ex-
ceeds melting temperature, as the mechanical properties do not alter for higher temperatures.
Since an ALM part with a height of 10cm can have up to 5000 layers, the simulation with
realistic layer sizes is not realizable even with today’s computer technology because of the
quantity of needed elements. Hence layers will be summarized in bundles.
To include thermal [14] and mechanical behaviour of the loose powder homogenized powder
properties are assumed and assigned to the newest activated element layer (table 1). At the
end of the exposure (i.e. exceeding liquidus temperature) the material properties of this layer
are changed to that of the bulk material. Each exposure is followed by a cooling process of
about 10 seconds, representing the application of new powder and movement of the roller
which is spreading it, multiplied with the number of layers that were taken together. To real-
ize the heat capacity of the base plate with few elements, the specific heat capacity for the
base plate elements is scaled by the ratio of the real volume to the mesh base plate volume.
For process simulation of the bracket temperature dependent material properties of Ti64, cal-
culated with JmatPro, where used.
__________________________________________________________________________________
Bulk Powder Base plate
__________________________________________________________________________________
Heat conductivity
Specific heat capacity
Young’s modulus
Thermal expansion 0
__________________________________________________________________________________

Table 1: Properties of bulk material, homogenized powder and effective base plate

The Simulations are calculated with MSC.MARC and user subroutines for element activation,
heat flux input and material conversion are written in FORTRAN 77. Furthermore a method
for choosing time steps in which constant time steps during the exposure and adaptive time
steps during the following cooling time is included. Figure 3 is showing the boundary condi-
tions used for the transient/static thermo-mechanical simulation.

Figure 3: Boundary conditions and loads

5 Results

In figure 4 the tendencies of residual stress (von Mises) and in figure 5 the distortion before
and after post-processing are shown. After process the part is still fixed to the base plate and
the highest residual stress is in connection to the base plate. After post-milling stresses relax
and lead to visible deformation in the rear arms of the bracket. The front arms exhibit a lower
distortion due to a higher inherent rigidity.

Figure 4: Residual stress distribution

Figure 5: Distortion

5 Summary and further developments

Altogether the simulation model presented here is a further step towards FEM based predic-
tion of residual stresses and distortions in generative processes. However, there are still sever-
al challenges in the research field of numerical simulations of the ALM process, including
long calculation times, exact thermal and mechanical calibration and the investigation of op-
timization strategies. By solving these challenges in further steps the derivation of optimal
process strategies leading to a computer-based process optimization will be possible.

6 Acknowledgement

The author’s would like to thank Wirtschaftsförderung Bremen for founding project InSiGen
and Sikker Rosendal for providing the CAD of the bracket. Furthermore the work of student
C. Kober is honoured for technical execution of the mesh generator.

7 References

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New York Heidelberg Dordrecht London, 2010.
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