Linkage of Macro- and Micro-scale Modelling Tools for Additive Manufacturing

Sammanfattning: Additive manufacturing methods for steel are competing against commercial production in an increasing pace. The geometry freedom together with the high strength and toughness due to extreme cooling rates make this method viable to use for high-performance components. The desirable material properties originate from the ultrafine grain structures. The production is often followed by a post hardening heat treatment to induce precipitation of other phases. The printing process does however bring several challenges such as cracking, pore formation, inclusions, residual stresses and distortions. It is therefore important to be able to predict the properties such as temperature evolution and residual stresses of the resulting part in order to avoid time consuming trial-and-error and unnecessary material waste. In order to link different parts and length scales of the process, the integrated computational materials engineering framework can be used where linkage tools couples results of different length scales. 18Ni300 maraging steel is a material that has been used extensively to produce parts by additive manufacturing, but there is still a wide scope for optimising the process and properties. In this thesis, the integrated computational materials engineering inspired framework is applied to link the process to the microstructure, which dictates the properties. Temperature evolution strongly influences the material properties, residual stresses and distortion in additive manufacturing. Therefore, simulations of temperature evolution for a selective laser melted 18Ni300 maraging steel have been performed by Simufact Additive and linked with the microstructure prediction tools in Thermo-Calc and DICTRA. Various printing parameters have been examined and resulting temperatures, cooling rates, segregations and martensitic start temperatures compared for different locations of the build part. Additionally, residual stresses and distortions were investigated in Simufact. It was found that higher laser energy density caused increased temperatures and cooling rates which generally created larger segregations of alloying elements and lower martensitic start temperatures at the intercellular region. There is however an impact from cooling rate and temperature independent of the energy density which makes energy density not an individual defining parameter for the segregations. By decreasing the baseplate temperature, lower temperatures below the martensitic start temperature were reached, enhancing martensite transformation. Primary dendrite arm spacing calculations were used to validate the cooling rates. The cell size corresponded well to literature of <1 μm. Distortions and residual stresses were very small. The calibration was based according to literature and need experimental values to be validated. The integrated framework demonstrated in this thesis provides an insight into the expected properties of the additively manufactured part which can decrease and replace trial-and-error methods.