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Support Structures Optimisation for High-Quality Metal Additive Manufacturing with Laser Powder Bed Fusion: A Numerical Simulation Study

This study focuses on Metal Additive Manufacturing (AM), an emerging method known for its ability to create lightweight components and intricate designs. However, Laser Powder Bed Fusion (LPBF), a prominent AM technique, faces a major challenge due to the development of high residual stress, resulti...

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Autores principales: Dimopoulos, Antonios, Salimi, Mohamad, Gan, Tat-Hean, Chatzakos, Panagiotis
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10673092/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/38005093
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ma16227164
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author Dimopoulos, Antonios
Salimi, Mohamad
Gan, Tat-Hean
Chatzakos, Panagiotis
author_facet Dimopoulos, Antonios
Salimi, Mohamad
Gan, Tat-Hean
Chatzakos, Panagiotis
author_sort Dimopoulos, Antonios
collection PubMed
description This study focuses on Metal Additive Manufacturing (AM), an emerging method known for its ability to create lightweight components and intricate designs. However, Laser Powder Bed Fusion (LPBF), a prominent AM technique, faces a major challenge due to the development of high residual stress, resulting in flawed parts and printing failures. The study’s goal was to assess the thermal behaviour of different support structures and optimised designs to reduce the support volume and residual stress while ensuring high-quality prints. To explore this, L-shaped specimens were printed using block-type support structures through an LPBF machine. This process was subsequently validated through numerical simulations, which were in alignment with experimental observations. In addition to block-type support structures, line, contour, and cone supports were examined numerically to identify the optimal solutions that minimise the support volume and residual stress while maintaining high-quality prints. The optimisation approach was based on the Design of Experiments (DOE) methodology and multi-objective optimisation. The findings revealed that block supports exhibited excellent thermal behaviour. High-density supports outperformed low-density alternatives in temperature distribution, while cone-type supports were more susceptible to warping. These insights provide valuable guidance for improving the metal AM and LPBF processes, enabling their broader use in industries like aerospace, medical, defence, and automotive.
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spelling pubmed-106730922023-11-14 Support Structures Optimisation for High-Quality Metal Additive Manufacturing with Laser Powder Bed Fusion: A Numerical Simulation Study Dimopoulos, Antonios Salimi, Mohamad Gan, Tat-Hean Chatzakos, Panagiotis Materials (Basel) Article This study focuses on Metal Additive Manufacturing (AM), an emerging method known for its ability to create lightweight components and intricate designs. However, Laser Powder Bed Fusion (LPBF), a prominent AM technique, faces a major challenge due to the development of high residual stress, resulting in flawed parts and printing failures. The study’s goal was to assess the thermal behaviour of different support structures and optimised designs to reduce the support volume and residual stress while ensuring high-quality prints. To explore this, L-shaped specimens were printed using block-type support structures through an LPBF machine. This process was subsequently validated through numerical simulations, which were in alignment with experimental observations. In addition to block-type support structures, line, contour, and cone supports were examined numerically to identify the optimal solutions that minimise the support volume and residual stress while maintaining high-quality prints. The optimisation approach was based on the Design of Experiments (DOE) methodology and multi-objective optimisation. The findings revealed that block supports exhibited excellent thermal behaviour. High-density supports outperformed low-density alternatives in temperature distribution, while cone-type supports were more susceptible to warping. These insights provide valuable guidance for improving the metal AM and LPBF processes, enabling their broader use in industries like aerospace, medical, defence, and automotive. MDPI 2023-11-14 /pmc/articles/PMC10673092/ /pubmed/38005093 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ma16227164 Text en © 2023 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Dimopoulos, Antonios
Salimi, Mohamad
Gan, Tat-Hean
Chatzakos, Panagiotis
Support Structures Optimisation for High-Quality Metal Additive Manufacturing with Laser Powder Bed Fusion: A Numerical Simulation Study
title Support Structures Optimisation for High-Quality Metal Additive Manufacturing with Laser Powder Bed Fusion: A Numerical Simulation Study
title_full Support Structures Optimisation for High-Quality Metal Additive Manufacturing with Laser Powder Bed Fusion: A Numerical Simulation Study
title_fullStr Support Structures Optimisation for High-Quality Metal Additive Manufacturing with Laser Powder Bed Fusion: A Numerical Simulation Study
title_full_unstemmed Support Structures Optimisation for High-Quality Metal Additive Manufacturing with Laser Powder Bed Fusion: A Numerical Simulation Study
title_short Support Structures Optimisation for High-Quality Metal Additive Manufacturing with Laser Powder Bed Fusion: A Numerical Simulation Study
title_sort support structures optimisation for high-quality metal additive manufacturing with laser powder bed fusion: a numerical simulation study
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10673092/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/38005093
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ma16227164
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