Temperature field simulations during selective laser melting process based on fully threaded tree

Selective laser melting (SLM) is a promising technique for additive manufacturing. During SLM of metallic powder, the temperature field and thermal history are important to understand physical phenomena involved. The purpose of this study is to simulate the temperature field during the SLM process of a hollow cylinder shape part based on a fully threaded tree (FTT) technique, and to analyze the temperature variation with time in different regions of the part. A revised model for temperature field simulation in the SLM process was employed, which includes the transition of powder-to-dense sub-model and a moving volumetric Gaussian distribution heat source sub-model. The FTT technique is then adopted as an adaptive mesh strategy in the simulation. The simulation result shows that during the SLM process of cylinder part, the temperature of inner powder bed is obviously higher than external one. The temperature at the internal of the molten pool is also higher than external, which may lead to differences in microstructures and other properties between the two regions.     

Numerical simulation of microstructure evolution on near eutectic spheroidal graphite cast iron

A multiphase cellular automaton model was developed to simulate microstructure evolution of near eutectic spheroidal graphite cast iron (SGI) during its solidification process, and both dendritic austenite and spheroidal graphite growth models were adopted. To deduce the mesh anisotropy of cellular automaton method, the composition averaging and geometrical parameter were introduced to simulate the spheroidal graphite growth. Solute balance method and decentered square algorithms were employed to simulate austenite dendrites growth with different crystallographic orientations. The simulated results indicate that the graphite nodule grows in a spherical morphology when the surrounding environment of a single graphite nodule is same. However, for two adjacent graphite nodules, the environment is different. The higher the carbon concentration, the faster the growth of graphite. By comparison with experimental results, it is found that the microstructure evolution of near eutectic spheroidal graphite cast iron during solidification process can be reproduced quantitatively by numerical simulation with this model.     

Modelling of compacted graphite cast iron solidification-Discussion of microstructure parameters

A melt maintained for hours in a press pour unit allowed the following changes over time from spheroidal graphite to compacted graphite iron by casting thermal cups at regular time intervals.This provided extensive experimental information for checking the possibility of simulating solidification of compacted graphite irons by means of a microstructure modelling approach.During solidification,compacted graphite develops very much as lamellar graphite but with much less branching.On this basis,a simulation of the thermal analysis records was developed which considers solidification proceeding in a pseudo binary Fe-C system.The simulated curves were compared with the experimental ones obtained from three representative alloys that cover the whole microstructure change during the holding of the melt.The most relevant result is that the parameter describing branching capability of graphite is the most important for reproducing the minimum eutectic temperature and the recalescence which are so characteristic of the solidification of compacted graphite cast irons.     

Simulation of casting deformation based on mold surface element method

Deformation of casting during the solidification process has puzzled many engineers and scientists for years. In order to attain the goal of near-net forming by casting, numerical simulation is a powerful tool. Traditional methods compute the thermal stress of both the casting and the mold. This method suffers the problem of massive calculation and failure of convergence. This paper proposes an improved Mold Surface Element Method, the main idea of which is to use the surface elements instead of body elements to express the interactions between the casting and the mold. The proposed method shows a high computation efficiency and provides satisfactory precision for engineering. Two practical casting products were used to verify the proposed method. The simulated results agree well with those observed in practical products. The proposed method is believed to benefit production practice and to provide theoretical guidance.     

Thermal stress analysis method considering geometric effect of risers in sand mold casting process

Solidification and fluid flow analysis using computer simulation is a current common practice. There is also a high demand for thermal stress analysis in the casting process because casting engineers want to control the defects related to thermal stresses, such as large deformation and crack generation during casting. The riser system is an essential part of preventing the shrinkage defects in the casting process, and it has a great influence on thermal phenomena. The analysis domain is dramatically expanded by attaching the riser system to a casting product due to its large volume, and it makes FEM mesh generation difficult. However, it is difficult to study and solve the above proposed problem caused by riser system using traditional analysis methods which use single numerical method such as FEM or FDM. In this paper, some research information is presented on the effects of the riser system on thermal stress analysis using a FDM/FEM hybrid method in the casting process simulation. The results show the optimal conditions for stress analysis of the riser model in order to save computation time and memory resources.     

Progress on modeling and simulation of directional solidification of superalloy turbine blade casting

Directional solidified turbine blades of Ni-based superalloy are widely used as key parts of the gas turbine engines.The mechanical properties of the blade are greatly influenced by the final microstructure and the grain orientation determined directly by the grain selector geometry of the casting.In this paper,mathematical models were proposed for three dimensional simulation of the grain growth and microstructure evolution in directional solidification of turbine blade casting.Ray-tracing method was applied to calculate the temperature variation of the blade.Based on the thermo model of heat transfer,the competitive grain growth within the starter block and the spiral of the grain selector,the grain growth in the blade and the microstructure evolution were simulated via a modified Cellular Automaton method.Validation experiments were carried out,and the measured results were compared quantitatively with the predicted results.The simulated cooling curves and microstructures corresponded well with the experimental results.The proposed models could be used to predict the grain morphology and the competitive grain evolution during directional solidification.     

Three dimensional phase-field simulation for non-isothermal binary alloy solidification: Comparison with LKT theory

Using the advanced algorithm combining parallel computing, adaptive mesh re-griding and multigrid methods, quantitative 3D phase-field simulations of non-isothermal solidification of binary alloy were carried out. The 3D phase-field simulation results were compared with the analytical LKT(Lipton, Kurz and Trivedi) theory. For comparison, the simulation and analytical results for 2D cases were also given. The 3D phase-field simulation results support the transport portion of the LKT theory. Howev...     

Numerical simulation of microstructure formation ofAZ91 using mCA method

A stochastic model for simulating the microstructure formation of Mg alloy AZ91 during solidification was developed based on the finite element method（FEM） for macroscopic model of heat transfer calculation and a modified Cellular Automaton （mCA） for microscopic modeling of nucleation, growth of crystal. In this model, the effect of solute redistribution, interface curvature and preferred orientation was considered. A numerical simulation was developed with C＋＋ program language. The computation was carded out to understand the effect of varying processing parameters, such as nucleation parameters and heat transfer coefficient, on the microstructure formation of AZ91. The result of simulation was displayed on screen.     

Phase-field simulation of solidification dendritic segregation in Ti-45Al alloy

The microstructures and mechanical properties of Ti Al alloys are directly linked to micro-segregation which cannot be avoided during solidification. So a thorough understanding of the micro-segregation should be a great help to further enhance the mechanical properties of the cast products. Theoretical analysis and experiments have been used to predict the micro-segregation, but it is very difficult to observe and determine the dendritic segregation in the micro region. Phase-field method has been employed for the simulation of dendritic growth. However, due to the complicated quasi-sub regular solution model for Ti-45Al(at.%) alloy, the classic phase-field models have difficulty to deal with the free energy. In this work, a phase-field model by linking thermodynamic calculation was used to simulate solidification dendritic segregation of Ti-45 Al alloy for Liquid→Liquid+β(Ti). The free energies of solid phase and liquid phase for Ti-45 Al alloy were calculated by Thermo-Calc and then coupled with the phase-field equations. The simulation results show the dendritic morphology and Al content variations between liquid and growing solid phase for Ti-45 Al alloy. With the growth of the β(Ti), dendritic segregation is formed in the liquid and solid phases due to the solute partitioning and rejection into the liquid. As a result, the dendrite arms are depleted of Al element, while the inter-dendrites are enriched. The dendritic tip growth velocity decreases with the progress of solidification, whereas the segregation ratio increases.     

MODELING OF ＇BANDING＇ MICROSTRUCTURE FORMATION IN CENTRIFUGALLY SOLIDIFIED Ti-6Al-4V ALLOY

Numerical investigations of the ＇banding＇ microstructure formation during solidification of Ti-6Al-4 V alloy in the centrifugal casting are conducted using a multi-scale model, which combines the finite difference method （FDM） at the macroscale with a cellular automaton （CA） model at the microscale. The macro model is used to simulate the fluid flow and heat transfer throughout the casting. The micro model is used to predict the nucleation and growth of microstructures. With the proposed model, numerical simulations are performed to study the influences of the nucleation density, mould rotation speed, and casting size upon the ＇banding＇ microstructure formation. It is noted that changing the nucleation density has a minor effect on the microstructure formation. The rotation speed promotes the formation of ＇banding＇ microstructure, which is more noticeable for larger size castings. The ＇major mechanism responsible for this ＇banding＇ phenomenon is the spatial variation in cooling rates created by centrifugal force.     

Three dimensional numerical simulation of welding temperature fields in stainless steel

Three kinds of mathematical models representing welding heat sources are presented. Among them, Gaussian model and double eUipsoidal model are used to analyze the thermal distributions with finite element method. At the same time, this paper analyzed the influences of the heat source models, the latent heat and the welding parameters on the temperature distributions. The comparisons between the simulated results and the experiments show double eUipsoidal model is good for three-dimensional numerical simulations. Furthermore, the adaptive mesh technique is applied in the three-dimeusional model which greatly reduces the number of nodes and elements in the simulation.     

Residual Stress Improved by Water Jet Peening for A Quenched Gear

In this paper, a running cost is cheap from the thing used for harmless peening treatment to the environment,health which an influence is rare in toward processing material like heat being only water fundamentally, and economical,and the characteristics is hard to get are given. There is some research about the residual stress improvement by water-jet peening during the high-speed water. In this study, a big bubble cloud ceremony water-jet peening which dissolves the problem of the form of the applicable thing by exposing the whole of the applicable thing in the big bubble cloud as the way of dealing with peening efficiently in a short time is proposed by this research. Moreover, the uniform compression residual stress is added around the surface of the processing side, and connected with the remarkable improvement of the fatigue strength of the part. Furthermore, and safety processing is very possible, and it thinks about the thing which has possible high practical use, and writers to get rid of the problems of the way of processing it with peening until now. Water-jet peening was given by this research during high-speed water with big bubble cloud-type water toward tooth gear manufactured by SCr420H3V2 to open the effect of water-jet peening during the high-speed water. A change was measured at the time as the sutra of the residual stress on the surface of the test settlement by the X-ray method, and the validity of this law was verified.     

Determination of the Observation Area for Metallographic Microstructure of GH4033 Superalloy in a Uniaxially Thermo-Mechanical Compression Experiment

Based on two-dimensional(2D) rigid-plastic finite element(FE) method, the optimum observation area for metallographic microstructure and the influence of the height–diameter ratio on which were analyzed for the cylindrical samples with the diameter of 8 mm and different heights from 8 to 16 mm in nonuniform compressive experiments. It is shown that the representative metallographic observation area relevant to the applied deformation condition is located at about 0.835 of the radius from the center of the sample to the solder joint between the sample and the thermocouples. At the same time, the microstructure in that area is more appropriate as the height of the sample is 12 mm. The related parameters of GH4033 superalloy were adopted in the FE analysis, and the validity of this analysis was verified by the compressive experiments.     

Numerical simulation for thermal flow filling process of casting

The solution algorithm （SOLA） method was used to solve the velocity and pressure field of the thermal flow filling process, and the volume of fluid （VOF） method for the flee surface problem. Since the ＂donor-acceptor＂ rule often results in the free interface vague, the explicit difference method was adopted, and a method describing the flee surface state at 0〈F〈 1 was proposed to deal with this problem. In order to raise the computation efficiency, such algorithms were investigated and invalidated as： 1） internal and external area separation simplification algorithm; 2） the reducing necessary search area method. With the improved algorithms, the filling processes of the valve cover castings with gravity cast and an up cylinder block casting with low-pressure cast were simulated, the simulation results are believable and the computation efficiency is greatly improved. The SOLA-VOF model and its difference method for thermal fluid flow filling process were introduced.     

Efficient fabrication of semisolid nondendritic Al alloy slurry with high quality

Subjecting a normal mechanical vibration to a cooling slope plate,is a proposed method for preparing semisolid nondendritic slurry,named shear-vibration coupling sub-rapid solidification(SCS).Taking Al-8Si alloy as model material,the temperature field and distribution field of solid or liquid phase during SCS were simulated using COMSOL Multiphysics software to primarily choose the optimal processing parameters.Subsequently,the slurries were prepared with the parameters selected according to the simulation results and the microstructures of the slurries were experimentally investigated.Results indicate that the simulation results could provide a basis for roughly choosing the processing parameters,although the calculated solid fractions are always higher than the experimental ones.The processing parameters affect the primary grain size,shape factor and solid fraction mainly through altering the contact duration of melt on the plate,and thus affecting the cooling effect on the melt,nucleation rate,and grain dissociation and proliferation.Experiments with optimized processing parameters show that the primary grains in the slurry have an average size of about 32μm and shape factor of 1.38,and are quite uniform,even at the highest pouring rate of 2.81 kg·s^-1,the size and shape factor are about 46μm and 1.7,respectively,which implies that the proposed SCS is a promising technology for efficient fabrication of high-quality Al slurry available for engineering applications.     

Directional solidification casting technology of heavy-duty gas turbine blade with liquid metal cooling (LMC) process

In this work, some important factors such as ceramic shell strength, heat preservation temperature, standing time and withdrawal rate, which influence the formability of directionally solidified large-size blades of heavy-duty gas turbine with the liquid metal cooling(LMC) process, were studied through the method of microstructure analysis combining. The results show that the ceramic shell with medium strength(the high temperature flexural strength is 8 MPa, the flexural strength after thermal shock resistance is 12 MPa and the residual flexural strength is 20 MPa) can prevent the rupture and runout of the blade. The appropriate temperature(1,520 ℃ for upper region and 1,500 ℃ for lower region) of the heating furnace can eliminate the wide-angle grain boundary, the deviation of grain and the run-out caused by the shell crack. The holding time after pouring(3-5 min) can promote the growth of competitive grains and avoid a great deviation of columnar grains along the crystal orientation 001, resulting in a straight and uniform grain structure. In addition, to avoid the formation of wrinkles and to ensure a smooth blade surface, the withdrawal rate should be no greater than the growth rate of grain. It is also found that the dendritic space of the blade decreases with the rise of solidification rate, and increases with the enlarging distance between the solidification position and the chill plate.     

Study of modeling and simulation of full digital controlled PMIG／MAG welding system based on Matlab／Simulink

This paper presents an integrated simulation model for full digital controlled PMIG/MAG welding system with Matlab/Simulink, and it consists of power inverter, digital control system and dynamic arc-load model. An integrated simulation study was done for fuU digital PMIG/MAG welding, and a method of connecting dynamic arc-load model to the system with controlled current source was presented, in addition, the simulation results were utilized to study the issues of digital control PMIG/MAG welding in this paper. The experimental results validated the developed simulation model, and this simulation study can be applied in implementation of the full digital PMIG/MAG welding and analysis of system dynamic process.     

Finite element modeling of macrosegregation coupled with shrinkage cavity in steel ingots using arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian model

Shrinkage cavity has significant influence on macrosegregation in steel ingots. An arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian(ALE) model based on volume averaging method is developed to predict the coupled formation progress of macrosegregation and shrinkage cavity during solidification of steel ingots. The combined effect of thermal-solutal convection and solidification shrinkage on macrosegregation is considered in the model. A specially designed mesh update algorithm is proposed to consider the formation of shrinkage cavity. The streamline-upwind/Petrov–Galerkin(SUPG) stabilized finite element algorithm is adopted to solve the conservation equations. Two solution methods for the energy conservation equation are proposed, i.e. the temperature-based solver and enthalpy-based solver. A Pb-48 wt.%Sn solidification benchmark is used for validation. Then, the ALE model is applied to a Fe-3.6 wt.%C industrial steel ingot. The formation progress of macrosegregation coupled with shrinkage cavity is predicted. By comparison with the predictions of the finite element model and finite volume model, the effect of shrinkage cavity formation on macrosegregation is investigated. Results show that the formation of shrinkage cavity can significantly change the segregation region and segregation degree at the hot top. It is demonstrated that the ALE model can predict the coupled formation of macrosegregation and shrinkage cavity in steel ingots.     

Modeling studies on divorced eutectic formation of high pressure die cast magnesium alloy

The morphology and content of the divorced eutectic in the microstructure of high pressure die casting(HPDC) magnesium alloy have a great influence on the final performance of castings. Based on the previous work concerning simulation of the nucleation and dendritic growth of primary α-Mg during the solidification of magnesium alloy under HPDC process, an extension was made to the formerly established CA(Cellular Automaton) model with the purpose of modeling the nucleation and growth of Mg-Al eutectic. With a temperature field and solute field obtained during simulation of the primary α-Mg dendrites as the initial condition of the modified CA model, modeling of the Mg-Al eutectic with a divorced morphology was achieved. Moreover, the simulated results were in accordance with the experimental ones regarding the distribution and content of the divorced eutectic. Taking a "cover-plate" die casting with AM60 magnesium alloy as an example, the rapid solidification with a high cooling rate at the surface layer of the casting led to a fine and uniform grain size of primary α-Mg, while the divorced eutectic at the grain boundary revealed a more dispersed and granular morphology. Islands of divorced eutectic were observed at the central region of the casting, due to the existence of ESCs(Externally Solidified Crystals) which contributed to a coarse and non-uniform grain size of primary α-Mg. The volume percentage of the eutectic β-Mg_(17)Al_(12) phase is about 2%-6% in the die casting as a whole. The numerical model established in this study is of great significance to the study of the divorced eutectic in the microstructure of die cast magnesium alloy.     

Effect of vacuum on solidification process and microstructure of LFC magnesium alloy

Lost foam casting （LFC） is regarded as a cost-effective, environment-friendly vital option to the conventional casting process for production of near-net shape castings with high quality. Effect of vacuum on the solidification process and microstructure of LFC magnesium alloy were explored. The results indicate that vacuum plays a very important role in the heat transfer during mould filling and solidification periods, it increases the cooling rate of the filling melt, but greatly decreases the cooling rate of the casting during solidification period, and the solidification time of the casting is greater than that without vacuum. The microstructure of LFC magnesium alloy is rather coarse. Compared with that without vacuum, the microstructure of the LFC magnesium alloy under vacuum is more refined and has less precipitated β-phase, which is formed at the grain boundry and around the Al-Mn compound particle.