In the present study, the gas tungsten arc welding wire feed additive manufacturing process is simulated and its final microstructure predicted by microstructural modelling, which is validated by microstructural characterization. The Finite Element Method is used to solve the temperature field and microstructural evolution during a gas tungsten arc welding wire feed additive manufacturing process. The microstructure of titanium alloy Ti-6Al-4V is computed based on the temperature evolution in a density-based approach and coupled to a model that predicts the thickness of the α lath morphology. The work presented herein includes the first coupling of the process simulation and microstructural modelling, which have been studied separately in previous work by the authors. In addition, the results from simulations are presented and validated with qualitative and quantitative microstructural analyses. The coupling of the process simulation and microstructural modeling indicate promising results, since the microstructural analysis shows good agreement with the predicted alpha lath size.
Keywords: Ti-6Al-4V; additive manufacturing; finite element method; metal deposition; microstructural modeling; titanium.