Analytical modeling of lack-of-fusion porosity in metal additive manufacturing

This work presents a physics-based analytical modeling methodology for the prediction of the lack-of-fusion porosity in powder bed metal additive manufacturing (PBMAM) considering the molten pool geometry, powder size variation, and packing. The presented model has promising short computational time without resorting to the finite element method or any iteration-based simulations. The temperature profiles were calculated using a closed-form temperature solution. Multiple transverse sectional areas of the molten pool geometry were plotted on a cross-sectional area of the part based on hatch space and layer thickness to calculate the lack-of-fusion area. The powder bed porosity was calculated using advancing front approach with consideration of powder statistical distribution and powder packing. The part porosity was converted from the calculated lack-of-fusion area by multiplying the calculated powder bed porosity. Acceptable agreements were observed upon validation against experimental measurements under various process conditions in PBMAM of Ti6Al4V. The computational time was recorded less than 26 s for the porosity calculation of five consecutive layers. The presented model has high prediction accuracy and high computational efficiency, which allow the porosity calculation for large-scale parts and process parameters planning through inverse analysis, and thus improves the usefulness of analytical modeling in real applications.