Numerical Simulation of Laser Rapid Manufacturing of Multi-Layer Thin Wall Using an Improved Mass Addition Approach

An improved mass addition approach based on enthalpy balance is used for the numerical simulation of the temperature distributions and geometries during laser rapid manufacturing (LRM) of a multi-layered thin-wall. The approach involves the estimation of the local track height at every node along the track width on the substrate/previously deposited layer by simultaneous balancing of the excessive enthalpies above solidus temperature about the laser axis and the material interface at the substrate/previously deposited layer for material addition during the laser rapid manufacturing of a multi-layer thin wall. It takes laser power, laser beam size, scan-speed, powder feed rate, powder stream diameter, and time-delay between the deposition of two subsequent tracks as user-defined input, and computes the temperature distributions and the geometries of the deposited layers across the process domain in a dynamic fashion. In the present study, the laser rapid manufacturing of five layered thin walls of SS 304L ...