Fast simulation for powder bed fusion process based on thermal field pattern repetitions: application on electron beam melting process

This work addresses the fast macroscale modelling of powder bed fusion for metallic materials. The main available approaches are analysed and applied on a typical benchmark of overhang part made by electron beam melting process. The aim is to quantify the side loss geometrical defect of the part. The accuracy of such classical fast macroscale modelling is limited due to the simplifications on the beam motion (not addressed) and the none dependency of the material properties to the temperature. To overcome these limitations, an original fast simulation is developed based on identification of layer-by-layer sequence repetitions and resulting thermal fields. These fields are then directly introduced to a mechanical simulation through thermal curve. Comparison between various fast simulation approaches are made according to their abilities to simulate the geometrical part defects and their required computing times. The first results on the thermal curve simulation show a good balance between accuracy and speed up regarding the full thermomechanical simulation and the experimental defect obtained on the produced part.