Analytical Solution of the Non-Stationary Heat Conduction Problem in Thin-Walled Products during the Additive Manufacturing Process

Materials (Basel). 2021 Jul 20;14(14):4049. doi: 10.3390/ma14144049.

Abstract

The work is devoted to the development of a model for calculating transient quasiperiodic temperature fields arising in the direct deposition process of thin walls with various configurations. The model allows calculating the temperature field, thermal cycles, temperature gradients, and the cooling rate in the wall during the direct deposition process at any time. The temperature field in the deposited wall is determined based on the analytical solution of the non-stationary heat conduction equation for a moving heat source, taking into account heat transfer to the environment. Heat accumulation and temperature change are calculated based on the superposition principle of transient temperature fields resulting from the heat source action at each pass. The proposed method for calculating temperature fields describes the heat-transfer process and heat accumulation in the wall with satisfactory accuracy. This was confirmed by comparisons with experimental thermocouple data. It takes into account the size of the wall and the substrate, the change in power from layer to layer, the pause time between passes, and the heat-source trajectory. In addition, this calculation method is easy to adapt to various additive manufacturing processes that use both laser and arc heat sources.

Keywords: additive manufacturing; analytical modeling; direct metal deposition; non-stationary temperature field.