Powder Bed Fusion

The Additive Manufacturing Module is an Add-on Module in Thermo-Calc that is primarily designed for modeling the powder bed fusion process in Additive Manufacturing. 

Special focus has been to have a unified treatment of alloy dependent material properties and process parameters when solving the multiphysics problem of a moving heat source that melts and solidifies metal powder. The multiphysics simulation involves thermal conduction, fluid flow, evaporation-, radiation- and convective- heat loss. 

Evaluation of the following is possible depending on calculation type:

The Additive Manufacturing Module offers several ways to visualize results, including Printability Maps, also known as Process Maps. Printability maps allow users to plot the likelihood of three possible defects that occur during additive manufacturing – keyholing, lack of fusion, and balling.

These defects occur based on the speed and power used during the AM process, so printability maps allow you to reduce the risks of these defects by showing the speed and power settings that are optimal (the white area in the image below), allowing you to calibrate your system to avoid these issues.

The AM Module offers several calculation types, including a Batch Calculation that allows users to input power and scan speed data from a file, such as a spreadsheet. This calculation type also allows users to include experimental melt pool dimensions, if they have them, so that they can compare experimental results to calculated results. This is done using a plot type called a Parity Plot, as shown in the image below.

The Additive Manufacturing Module makes it easy to set up simulations related to the powder bed fusion process for additive manufacturing by offering an intuitive workflow and templates for setting up the simulations. The software also allows users to save their alloys directly in the calculator, so you can easily access them later, saving time and ensuring consistency in your work. The software ships with several common alloys used in additive manufacturing so users can begin making simulations immediately. 

The Additive Manufacturing Module seamlessly couples with both the Diffusion Module (DICTRA) and Precipitation Module (TC-PRISMA) so that the probe data generated from an AM calculation can be used as input for diffusion and precipitation calculations. Relevant add-on licenses are required for each calculator that is coupled.

Most of the functionality in the Additive Manufacturing Module is also available in TC-Python, our Python-based API. This API allows users to easily perform simulations over a large range or process parameters and to produce printability maps for when defects like lack-of-fusion, keyholing, and balling will occur.

The actual integration needs to be programmed by the customer using Python.

For compatibility with the Additive Manufacturing Module, a database needs the following properties added in addition to the thermodynamics: surface tension for liquid, viscosity for liquid, thermal conductivity, molar volume, and a complete gas description.

The Additive Manufacturing Module is currently available with the following databases, starting with the version listed below: