Transient Thermo-mechanical Modeling of stress Evolution and Re-melt Volume Fraction in Electron Beam Additive Manufacturing Process

The quality of parts produced using powder bed fusion additive manufacturing processes viz. electron beam melting mainly depends on the energy source, raster scan pattern, and stress evolution due to concentrated heat addition. In the present work, effort has been made to analyze the relationship between various process parameters such as input power, penetration depth, raster scan hatch spacing, powder porosity and their effects on the temperature profile, stress evolution and re-melt volume, using a three-dimensional thermo-mechanical simulation of the EBAM process on AISI 316L stainless steel, implemented using the COMSOL® multiphysics modelling platform. The volume fraction of re-melt material shows a non-linear and non-monotonic dependence on the electron beam size. The results of this study pave way for robust design of the EBAM process from simulation point of view.