Conventional Meso-Scale and Time-Efficient Sub-Track-Scale Thermomechanical Model for Directed Energy Deposition

Thermally-induced distortion and residual stresses in parts fabricated by the additive manufacturing (AM) process can lead to part rejection and failure. Still, the understanding of thermo–mechanical behavior induced due to the process physics in AM process is a complex task that depends upon process and material parameters. In this work, a 3D thermo-elasto-plastic model is proposed to predict the thermo–mechanical behavior (thermal and distortion field) in the laser-directed energy deposition (LDED) process using the finite element method (FEM). The predicted thermo–mechanical responses are compared to stainless steel 316L (SS 316L) deposition, with single and double bead 42-layer wall samples subject to different inter-layer dwell times, which govern the thermal response of deposited parts in LDED. In this work, the inter-layer dwell times used in experiments vary from 0 to 10 s. Based on past research into the LDED process, it is assumed that fusion and thermal cycle-induced annealing leads to stress relaxation in the material, and is accounted for in the model by instantaneously removing stresses beyond an inversely calibrated relaxation temperature. The model predicts that, for SS 316L, an increase in dwell time leads to a decrease in in situ and post-process distortion values. Moreover, increasing the number of beads leads to an increase in in situ and post-process distortion values. The calibrated numerical model’s predictions are accurate when compared with in situ and post-process experimental measurements. Finally, an elongated ellipsoid heat source model is proposed to speed up the simulation.