Accepted Manuscript

Title: Mesoscopic Simulation of Selective Beam Melting

Processes

Authors: Carolin Körner, Elham Attar, Peter Heinl

PII: S0924-0136(10)00386-9
DOI: doi:10.1016/j.jmatprotec.2010.12.016
Reference: PROTEC 13049

To appear in: Journal of Materials Processing Technology

Received date: 6-10-2010

Revised date: 10-12-2010
Accepted date: 17-12-2010

Please cite this article as: Körner, C., Attar, E., Mesoscopic Simulation of Selective
Beam Melting Processes, Journal of Materials Processing Technology (2010),
doi:10.1016/j.jmatprotec.2010.12.016

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*Manuscript

Mesoscopic Simulation of Selective Beam Melting

Processes

t
ip
Carolin Körner*, Elham Attar** and Peter Heinl
Institute for Material Science and Technology of Metals, Department of Materials

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Science, University of Erlangen - Nuremberg, Martensstrasse 5, 91058 Erlangen,
Germany
* Corresponding author: carolin.koerner@ww.uni-erlangen.de
** elham.attar@ww.uni-erlangen.de

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Tel: +49 9131 85-27528 Fax: +49 9131 85-27515

Abstract
an
A 2D lattice Boltzmann model is developed to investigate melting and
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re-solidification of a randomly packed powder bed under the irradiation of a
Gaussian beam during selective beam melting processes. Numerical simula-
tion results are presented where individual powder particles are considered.
d

This approach makes many physical phenomena accessible which can not be
described in a standard continuum picture, e. g. the influence of the rela-
te

tive powder density, the stochastic effect of a randomly packed powder bed,
capillary and wetting phenomena. The proposed model, although still 2D,
is able to predict many experimental observations such as the well known
p

balling effect.
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A process map is used to demonstrate the effect of the process param-

eters, beam powder and scan speed. The simulation results are compared
with experimental findings during Selective Electron Beam Melting (SEBM).
The comparison shows good agreement between simulation results and ex-
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periments.
Keywords: Additive manufacturing, Selective beam melting, Lattice
Boltzmann method, Fluid dynamics, Heat transfer.

1. Introduction
Beam and powder based layered manufacturing methods are relatively
novel technologies that can build parts from powdered material via layer-

Preprint submitted to Journal of Materials Processing Technology December 10, 2010

Page 1 of 26
by-layer melting induced by a directed electron or laser beam (Levy et al.
(2003)). Examples of commercialised selective beam melting processes are
Selective Laser Beam Melting (SLM) and Selective Electron Beam Melting

t
(SEBM). During the SLM or SEBM process the surface of a powder bed is

ip
selectively scanned with a beam. Thin molten tracks develop and combine
to form a 2D layer of the final part. After completion of one layer, the whole

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powder bed is lowered and a fresh powder layer is spread on the building zone.
The selective melting process is repeated until the component is completed.
Generally, for different materials different powder consolidation mecha-

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nisms are essential: solid state sintering, liquid phase sintering, partial melt-
ing, full melting, chemical binding, etc. (Kruth et al. (2005, 2007)). For
metal powders, melting and re-solidification are the underlying mechanisms

an
to consolidate the powder particles for building a functional part. Typical
process defects associated with SLM/SEBM processes are porosity, residual
powder and not connected layers. State-of-the-art to find the optimal pro-
cessing parameters for a new material is still based on an expensive trial
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and error process. This makes the range of applicable materials still to be
strongly limited.
The SLM/SEBM process is rather complex and involves many different
d
physical phenomena (Das (2003)): absorption of the beam in the powder
bed and the melt pool or the re-solidified melt, melting and re-solidification
te

of a melt pool, wetting of the powder particles with the liquid, diffusive
and radiative heat conduction in the powder, diffusive and convective heat
conduction in the melt pool, capillary effects, gravity, etc. The melt pool
p

caused by the beam is highly dynamic and driven by the high surface tension
in combination with the low viscosity of liquid metals. This leads to the
ce

development of stochastic melt tracks with irregular, corrugated appearance.

On the other hand, the life time of the melt pool is rather short - only some
milliseconds. After finishing one layer, a new powder layer is applied on
Ac

the corrugated surface leading to a new powder layer with strongly varying
thickness which might result in a typical process defect.
Several authors apply numerical simulation methods in order to develop a
better understanding of the underlying consolidation process. Williams and
Deckard (1998) developed the 2D finite difference model to study process pa-
rameters in selective laser sintering of polymers. There are also finite element
models presented by Bugeda et al. (1999) and Shiomi et al. (1999) to simulate
selective laser sintering process. Zhang and Faghri (1999) developed a model
for melting of two component metal powders with significantly different melt-

Page 2 of 26
ing points. Tolochko et al. (2000) used the simulation and experiments in
order to investigate the effects of process parameters on sintering mechanism
of Ti powders. Kolossov et al. (2004) developed a three dimensional finite

t
element model which considers the nonlinear behaviour of thermal conduc-

ip
tivity and specific heat due to temperature and phase transformation. The
results of this model were experimentally tested by direct temperature mea-

cr
surements. Recently, Zäh and Lutzmann (2010) developed the finite element
method for simulation of electron beam melting process. In all mentioned
approaches the underlying model is based on a homogenised picture, i. e. the

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powders are considered as a homogeneous material with effective properties,
e. g. an effective thermal conductivity which depends on the relative density.
In order to have a more realistic model, Konrad et al. (2005) and Xiao

an
and Zhang (2007a,b) divided the powder bed into different regions from the
bottom to the heating surface and for each region the effective thermal con-
ductivity is defined separately. Though Zhou et al. (2009) consider a bimodal
randomly packed particle bed for the simulation of the radiative heat transfer
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in a selective laser sintering process, melting and the development of the melt
pool geometry is not described. A essential challenge for the homogeneous
approaches is to model the powder shrinkage of about 50% during the solid-
d
liquid phase transformation. It is well known that shrinkage has an enormous
influence on the melt pool geometry and the local thermal properties. All
te

shrinkage models available are solely a function of the packing density of the
powder. None of the models considers the shrinkage of a real random powder
bed. The resulting melt pool geometries are thus always well defined without
p

the stochastic behaviour which is experimentally observed (Tolochko et al.

(2000)). That is, the existing models in literature are still far away from the
ce

experimental findings. One reason for that discrepancy is certainly that the
models are not considering individual powder particles.
The purpose of this paper is to gain a much better understanding of the
Ac

SLM/SEBM process with the help of numerical simulation. Our method is

based on a lattice Boltzmann model (LBM) (Chen and Doolen (1998); He and
Luo (1997)) which is an alternative to ordinary computational fluid dynam-
ics models. The LBM approach is especially beneficial for problems with
complex interfaces such as flows in porous media (Bernsdorf et al. (2000);
Pan et al. (2004)) or the development of foams (Körner et al. (2005)). In
contrast to existing models in the literature we are developing a numerical
tool where the effect of individual powder particles is considered. A se-
quential addition packing algorithm is employed to generate 2D randomly

Page 3 of 26
packed powder layers that are composed of spherical particles. The beam
is absorbed by the powder layer, heats the powder and eventually melts it.
Due to capillary forces, gravity and wetting a complex shaped and strongly

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changing melt pool geometry develops until solidification freezes the current

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state. The comparison with experimental results from SEBM demonstrates
the predictive power of our numerical model.

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2. Physical Model

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Figure 1 gives a rough overview of the basic physical processes governing
selective beam melting processes. In order to make the process accessible to
numerical simulation, the real physical process has to be simplified in such a
way that the dominant mechanisms (in bold fonts in figure 1) are taken into

an
account while the secondary ones are neglected for the present model. In the
following, details of the underlying physical model are described.
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d
p te
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Figure 1: Physical phenomena during selective beam melting.

2.1. Random Powder Bed Generation

The generation of the random powder bed follows the so-called rain model
for random packing, for details see Meakin and Juillien (1987). This is a

Page 4 of 26
model in which the falling particle, after its first contact, searches, with
the help of gravity, for a more favorable situation by rotation until another
contact is realized. The particle can rotate as often as necessary (always

t
decreasing its potential energy), to finally reach the nearest local minimum.

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When no contacted particle is found, the particle is deposited on the basal
line. The algorithm is schematically depicted in figure 2, (a). The falling

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a) b)

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c) an
d)
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d
te

Figure 2: Random powder bed a) Schematic of the rain model for random packing with
p

rotations. b) Powder bed produced by the rain model. c) Adjusting the relative density
by removing some of the particles. d) Cross section of a real powder bed (titanium alloy).
ce

particle algorithm is representation of what happens in a very strong gravity

field in 2D and produces very dense powder beds (relative density ≈ 75%),
Ac

figure 2, (b). Different packing densities are realized by removing some of the
powder particles after dense powder bed production, figure 2, (c). It is also
possible to add powders with different size distribution such as a Gaussian
distribution or a bimodal distribution. An example of a real powder bed
cross section is depicted in figure 2, (d). The packing density for the powders
with Gaussian size distribution in the range of 45-115 µm is about 55%. In
order to reproduce similar packing density in simulation, some of the powder
particles have to be removed from the powder bed(figure 2, (c)).

Page 5 of 26
2.2. Beam Definition in 2D
The moving beam is described by a Gaussian distribution:

t
(x − v t)2
 
P

ip
I(x, t) = √ exp − (1)
2 πσ 2 σ2
where I is the beam power density, v is the velocity of the beam, σ is the

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standard deviation and P is the total beam power.
In order to characterize manufacturing processes the line energy, EL , has
shown to be an important parameter:

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P
EL = . (2)
v

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2.3. Beam Absorption
The radiation penetrates into the powder bed by the open pore system.
In the case of an electron beam, the radiation energy is nearly completely
M
absorbed at the position where it has first contact with the material. The
absorption process for laser radiation is much more complicated due to multi-
reflection processes causing radiation transport in much deeper powder layers
(Zhou et al. (2009)). Our present model does not take reflection processes into
d

account but is able to handle the transient nature of the absorbing surface
te

due to melting. Figure 3 shows how the model treats the penetration of the
beam into the powder layer and the melt pool. When the beam touches a
powder particle or the melt pool energy absorption follows the exponential
p

Lambert-Beer absorption law,

ce

dI
= −λabs I, (3)
dz
where λabs denotes the absorption coefficient. Figure 3 shows the absorption
Ac

of the beam through a single powder particle. In addition, the numerical grid
is schematically depicted. Numerically, the energy ∆I is absorbed within a
numerical cell with width ∆x:
∆I
= −λabs I ǫ (4)
∆x
where ǫ denotes the fraction of material (solid or liquid) within the numerical
cell.

Page 6 of 26
 t
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Figure 3: Beam absorption. Left: Absorption of the beam into the powder layer and
melt pool that develops. Right: Absorption of the beam within a powder particle. The
numerical grid is schematically shown.
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2.4. Energy Transfer and Conservation Equations
The beam energy is absorbed in the powder bed, the powder temperature
increases and the thermal energy spreads by heat diffusion. When the tem-
d
perature exceeds the solidus temperature of the metal, the solid-fluid phase
transformation starts thereby consuming latent heat L. When the local liq-
te

uid phase fraction exceeds a given threshold value, the solid starts to behave
as a liquid. The liquid material is governed by the Navier-Stokes equations.
Heat transport in the liquid is either by diffusion or by convection. Radi-
p

ation and convection of heat from the liquid surface are neglected so that
the excess heat of the liquid must be dissipated by heat conduction into the
ce

powder bed in order to re-solidify the melt pool. The neglect of convection
is justified since the SEBM process is under vacuum. Radiation could have
an essential effect and will be taken into account in a further work.
Ac

The underlying continuum equations of heat convection-diffusion transport

are founded on an enthalpy based methodology. The single-phase contin-
uum conservation equations to simulate thermo-fluid incompressible trans-
port comprising melting and solidification are given by:

∇ · u = 0, (5)

∂u 1
+ (u · ∇) u = − ∇p + ν∇2 u + g, (6)
∂t ρ

Page 7 of 26
 ∂E
+ ∇ · (u E) = ∇ · ( k∇ E) + Φ (7)
∂t

t
where ∇ is the gradient operator, t the time, u the local velocity of the melt,

ip
p the pressure, ρ the density and ν the kinematic viscosity. The thermal
diffusivity is designated by k = k(E) and gravity is denoted by g. The
energy source Φ describes the energy deposited in the material by the beam.

cr
Viscous heat dissipation and compression work are neglected in the present
model.

us
The thermal energy density E is given by
Z T
E= ρ cp dT + ρ ∆H, (8)
0

an
where cp is the specific heat at constant pressure, T is the temperature and
∆H is the latent enthalpy of a computational cell undergoing phase change.
For a multi component metal alloy, ∆H is a complex function of the temper-
M
ature. In a simple approximation it can be expressed as follows:

 L, T > Tf
T −Ti
∆H(T ) = · L, Ti < T < Tf (9)
 Tf −Ti
d

0, T < Ti ,
with Ti and Tf representing the beginning and the end of the phase trans-
te

formation, respectively. L is the latent heat of phase change. Denoting ξ as

the liquid fraction in a cell,
p

∆H(T )
ξ(T ) = . (10)
L
ce

The latent enthalpy is taken up into an effective specific heat c̃p :

Z T Z T
E= ρ cp dT + ρ ∆H = ρ c̃p dT (11)
Ac

0 0

with 
 cp , T > Tf
L
c̃p = cp + Tf −Ti
, Ti < T < Tf (12)
cp , T < Ti ,


The thermal diffusivity k is related to the heat conductivity λ by:

λ(E)
k(E) = (13)
ρ c̃p (E)

Page 8 of 26
2.5. Capillarity and Wetting
Capillarity and wetting are strongly correlated and both phenomena are
governed by the surface and interface energies. Both play a crucial role during

t
SLM/SEBM processes. It depends on the experimental conditions whether

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the liquid wets the still solid powder (or re-solidified melt pool) underneath,
see figure 4.

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an
Figure 4: Schematic of capillarity and wetting. a) Non-wetting melt pool on top of the
powder. b) Wetting melt pool on top of the powder. c) Dynamic wetting angle θ and
equilibrium wetting angle θ0 with respect to the tangent direction t.
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A well-known phenomenon during SLM/SEBM processes is the break up
of thin melt pools into spherical droplets, called balling (Levy et al. (2003)).
Commonly, balling is explained by the Plateau-Rayleigh capillary instability
d

of a cylinder at length to diameter ratio greater than π (Gusarov et al.

te

(2007)). A strong non-wetting condition further amplifies balling (figure 4,

a), while good wetting of the melt with the underlying powder (or re-solidified
melt pool) works against balling. Capillary forces, Fcap , develop if the surface
p

curvature κ does not vanish:

ce

Fcap = κ · σ · dA · n, (14)

where κ is the curvature, σ is the surface tension, dA denotes a surface

element, and n is the normal vector belonging to dA.
Ac

In order to describe dynamic wetting we have to take into account the

wetting force that can be derived from Young’s equation. A wetting force
is present if the dynamic wetting angle, θ, is not equal to the equilibrium
wetting angle, θ0 . The tangential component of the force Ftwet equals (see
figure 4, c):

Ftwet = σ (cos θ − cos θ0 ) . (15)

Page 9 of 26
3. Lattice Boltzmann Model
Lattice Boltzmann approaches model physical problems (commonly fluid

t
dynamical problems) by simulating the temporal evolution of one-particle

ip
distribution functions f (x, v, t), where f represents the probability of finding
a (fluid) particle at position x, at time t, moving with velocity v. Knowing f ,
local values of the density and momentum are given by evaluating moments

cr
of f . The lattice Boltzmann distribution function fi is a discretized version
of the continuous function f , where space is divided up into a regular lattice

us
and the velocities are represented by a finite number of displacement vectors
∆t· ei to neighboring lattice sites, where i = 0, . . . , b, ∆t is the time step, and
b represents the total number of displacement directions. Resting particles
are represented by a zero displacement vector e0 .

3.1. Multi-distribution function method

an
In order to solve the macroscopic equations (5), (6), (7), we apply a
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multi-distribution function method (Palmer and Rector (2000); Chatterjee
and Chakraborty (2006)). Using a second distribution to model the energy
density implies that we are following the passive-scalar approach which is
based on the fact that the temperature satisfies the same evolution equa-
d

tion as a passive scalar if viscous heat dissipation and compression work are
negligible (Shan (1997)).
te

At each lattice site, two sets of distribution functions, fi and hi , are

defined. The distribution fi models mass and momentum transport, whereas
p

the distribution hi represents the movement of the internal energy. The

macroscopic quantities are given by
ce

X X X
ρ= fi , ρu = ei fi , E= hi , (16)
i i i
Ac

where ρ is the density, u is the macroscopic velocity and E is the energy

density, i. e. the energy per unit volume.
The collision and displacement of the distributions are summarized by
the equations of motion
∆t eq
fi (x + ei , t + ∆t) − fi (x, t) = (f (x, t) − fi (x, t)) + Fi (17)
τf i

∆t eq
hi (x + ei , t + ∆t) − hi (x, t) = (h (x, t) − hi (x, t)) + Φi , (18)
τh i

10

Page 10 of 26
where fi (x, t) and hi (x, t) represent the density and energy distribution func-
tions in i-direction .The energy source Φi is the energy deposited in each cell
under beam radiation which calculated from Eq. (4)

t
For the consideration of body forces, e. g. the gravity g, we use the method

ip
described by Luo (2000):
 
(ei − u) (ei · u) ei

cr
Fi = wi ρ + ·g (19)
c2s c2s

fieq (x, t) and heq

us
i (x, t) are the equilibrium distributions functions:

(ei · u) (ei · u)2 u2

 
eq
fi (x, t) = ωi ρ 1 + + − 2 (20)
c2s 2 c4s 2 cs

an
(ei · u) (ei · u)2 u2
 
eq
hi (x, t) = ωi E 1 + + − 2 (21)
c2s 2 c4s 2 cs
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For the two-dimensional D2Q9 model, the velocity vectors ei and the weights
ωi are given by:

 (0, 0), i=0
d

ei = (±c, 0), (0, ±c), i = 1, . . . , 4 (22)

(±c, ±c), i = 5, . . . , 8

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
 4/9, i=0
ωi = 1/9, i = 1, . . . , 4 (23)
p

1/36, i = 5, . . . , 8.

ce

The speed of sound is given by c2s = c2 /3. For small Mach numbers
Ma = |u| /cs ≪ 1, i. e. under the incompressible flow limit, the mass, mo-
mentum and energy equation can be derived through a Chapman-Enskop
Ac

expansion(Palmer and Rector (2000); Chatterjee and Chakraborty (2006);

Shi and Guo (2009)). The viscosity, ν, and the thermal diffusivity, k, are
given by:

ν = c2s ∆t (τf − 0.5); k = c2s ∆t (τh − 0.5). (24)

where τf and τh are the dimensionless relaxation times for the velocity and
temperature field respectively Equations (17) and (18) are solved in a two-
step procedure - collision and advection:

11

Page 11 of 26
 Collision:
∆t eq
fiout (xi , t) = fiin(x, t) + fi (x, t) − fiin (x, t) + Fi


(25)

t
τf

ip
∆t eq
hout in
hi (x, t) − hin


i (xi , t) = hi (x, t) + i (x, t) + Φi (26)
τh

cr
Advection:
fiin (x + ei , t + ∆t) = fiout (x, t) (27)

us
hin out
i (x + ei , t + ∆t) = hi (x, t) (28)
where fiout and fiin denote the outgoing (i. e. after collision) and incoming (i.
e. before collision) distribution functions, respectively. At equilibrium, the

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energy current is proportional to the mass current.

3.2. Free Boundary Treatment

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The description of the liquid-gas interface is very similar to that of vol-
ume of fluid methods. An additional variable, the volume fraction of fluid ǫ,
defined as the portion of the area of the cell filled with fluid, is assigned to
each interface cell. The representation of liquid-gas interfaces is depicted in
d

figure 5. Gas cells are separated from liquid cells by a layer of interface cells.
These interface cells form a completely closed boundary in the sense that
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no distribution function is directly advected from fluid to gas cells and vice
versa. This is a crucial point to assure mass conservation since mass coming
p

from the liquid or mass transferred to the liquid always passes through the
interface cells where the total mass is balanced. Hence, global conservation
ce

laws are fulfilled if mass and momentum conservation is ensured for interface
cells. The used cell types and their state variables and possible state trans-
formations are listed in Table 1. For details see Körner et al. (2005).
Ac

Fluid cells and interface cells solidify when the temperature falls below a
certain threshold value which corresponds to a certain solid fraction value.
For our examples we use a solid fraction value of 55% as threshold value.
Solidification is realized by putting the velocity of the cell back to zero. A
solid cell in the neighbourhood of a liquid cell is treated as a wall cell, i. e.
the distributions functions fi arriving in a solid cell from a liquid cell underly
the bounce back condition.

12

Page 12 of 26
 t
ip
cr
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Figure 5: Representation of a free liquid-gas interface by interface cells. The real interface
(dashed line) is captured by assigning the interface cells their liquid fraction.

gas pressure pG

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cell type fi /hi fluid fraction ǫ change of state
fluid F • - - → I, → S
gas G - - • →I
interface I • • • → G , → F, → S
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solid S • • - →I,→F
wall W • - - -
d

Table 1: Cell types: State variables and possible state transformations.

te

The effect of the surface tension is treated as a local modification of the

gas pressure pG acting at the interface, i. e. the gas pressure is replace by
p

pG − κ · σ, (29)
ce

where κ and σ denote the mean curvature and the surface energy, respectively.
Equation (29) is valid for the 2D situation. In 3D κ has to be replaced by
2 κ.
Ac

Wetting is also included in the numerical model. The basic idea of our
approach is to bring this force into the numerical model as a kind of addi-
tional capillary force. Details of the algorithm and its validation are given
in reference (Attar and Körner (2009)). The wetting angle between fluid
and solid powder can be adjusted between 0 and π. It is also possible to
define the wetting angle between fluid and re-solidified fluid. In this paper,
we assumed complete wetting between fluid and re-solidified fluid.
Interface cells separate gas cells from fluid or solidified cells. After stream-
ing, only distribution functions from fluid, solid and interface cells are given.

13

Page 13 of 26
Distribution functions arriving from gas cells are not defined and have to
be reconstructed in such a way that the pressure boundary conditions are
fulfilled. The detailed reconstruction algorithm is published somewhere else

t
(Attar and Körner (2010)).

ip
4. Results and Discussion

cr
In the following the potential of the LBM to simulate selective beam melt-
ing processes is demonstrated by means of some illustrative examples. The

us
numerical simulation allows to investigate the influence of material and pro-
cessing parameters which can not easily be experimentally realized. Thus,
two classes of numerical investigations are presented. The first class of nu-
merical experiments has predictive character since parameters are considered

an
which can not be easily adjusted in the experiment but might have strong
influence on the result. The second class are simulations where experimental
results are available.
M
We consider Selective Electron Beam Melting as an example for a selective
beam melting process. Details of the SEBM are described in reference (Heinl
et al. (2007)). The raw material for the process is gas atomized pre-alloyed
TiAl6V4 powder in a size range of 45 − 115 µm. In the experiment the
d

beam is moving relatively to the powder bed to create a single melt line on
te

a pre-sintered powder bed. The electron beam power and beam velocity are
adjusted to obtain lines with different widths. Cross sections of the experi-
mental lines are considered and compared with the 2D simulation results.
p

The simulation parameter have to be adjusted to the physical system

(table 2). For numerical simulation the material parameters have to be ex-
ce

pressed in dimensionless form (LBM parameters). The dimensionless num-

bers for beam based additive manufacturing process, as described in Elsen
et al. (2008), are considered to set the simulation parameters. The physical
Ac

system is first converted into dimensionless numbers and simulation param-

eters are calculated with the help of these dimensionless numbers.
For all simulations length scale, mass scale, temperature scale and time
scale are considered as ∆x = 5.0 ×10−6 m, ∆m = 5.0 ×10−13 kg, ∆T = 6.5
×10−4 K and ∆t = 2.2 ×10−7s respectively. The material parameters follow
by multiplying the dimensionless quantities with the relevant scales such as
3 ∆t2 2
ρ∗ = ρ ∆x∆m
∆t
, ν ∗ = ν ∆x 2, σ
∗
= σ ∆m , g ∗ = g ∆t
∆x
∆t
, k ∗ = k ∆x 2 and etc. The

dimensionless quantities are marked with ∗.

14

Page 14 of 26
Table 2: Physical properties of TiAl6V4 in experiments (Rai et al. (2009); Iida and Guthrie
(1988)) and simulations

t
Physical Properties Experiment LBM

ip
Density of liquid 4000 kg/m3 1.0
Viscosity 0.005 P as 0.011

cr
Surface tension 1.65 N/m 0.15
Gravity 9.81 m/s2 10−7
Thermal diffusivity of solid 7.83×10−6 m2 /s 0.068

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Thermal diffusivity of liquid 9.93×10−6 m2 /s 0.087
Solidus temperature 1878 K 1.22
Liquidus temperature 1928 K 1.25

an
Preheat temperature 1023 K 0.664
Latent heat M 0.37×106 J/kg 0.3

4.1. Wetting Conditions

The impact of the wetting conditions is only numerically investigated
since the wetting behaviour can not be easily influenced in the experiment.
d

A system with 250×200 cells (1.25×1.0 mm) is considered where the beam
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(diameter: 72 cells: 350 µm ) is kept motionless relative to the powder bed.

The beam energy is considered to be 2.5/∆t and the duration of the beam
irradiation is 1440 time steps which is equivalent to 0.830 J/mm. Figure 6
p

shows that the wetting condition has an enormous influence on the formation
of the melt pool.
ce

If the liquid metal does not wet the powder, pronounced balling takes
place. Balling is experimentally observed when the molten metal powder
layer does not wet the underlying substrate due to a contamination layer of
Ac

oxide being present on the surface of the powder and the melt (Das (2003)).
Balling is one of the problems obstructing selective beam melting processes.
It is important to notice that the wetting conditions do not only have influ-
ence on the shape of the melt pool but also on the thermal conditions and
therewith on the size of the melt pool since wetting leads to a larger heat to
the surrounding solid powder.
In the following, it is assumed that liquid metal wets the powder and
the solidified liquid (i. e. θ0 = 30°) since our experimental SEBM approach
is under high vacuum conditions. We will also see that balling and the

15

Page 15 of 26
 t
ip
cr
100 cells = 0.5 mm

us
Figure 6: Influence of different wetting conditions on the appearance of the melt pool for
a static beam. Left: wetting condition: θ0 = 10°. Right : non-wetting condition: θ0 =
160°.

an
appearance of the melt pool are not only a phenomenon governed by wetting
but also influenced by the relative density, randomness of the powder bed
and the size of the melt pool relative to the powder particle diameter.
M
4.2. Energy Input
In order to investigate the influence of the extension of the pool the
energy input is increased while all other parameters are kept constant. To
d

define the beam power and irradiation time in simulation, the dimensionless
P
te

power (P ∗ = vρLD 2 ) is considered where P is the beam power, v is the scan

speed, L is the latent heat and D is the beam diameter (Elsen et al. (2008)).
Figure 7 shows the experimental and numerical alteration of the geometry
p

with increasing energy input.

As long as the total melt pool size is not much larger than the mean
ce

powder diameter, the melt tries to assume a rather round shape in order
to minimize the surface energy. The geometry changes for larger melt pools
since the relative contribution of capillary, wetting and gravity forces changes.
Ac

We observe an analogous effect for the numerical simulation, figure 7 (right).

4.3. Relative Powder Density

The influence of the powder packing density on the resulting melt pool
geometry is studied in figure 8. By increasing the particle packing density
from 39% to 74% the melt pool geometry gets more and more defined and
approaches a half circle. For low relative powder densities, the resulting
melt pool geometry is strongly dependent on the local powder configuration.
This results in geometries which are dominated by an interplay between

16

Page 16 of 26
 Experiment Simulation
a)

t
ip
cr
b)

us
500 ìm
an
100 cells = 500 ìm
M
Figure 7: Size of the melt pool. Experiment: Moving beam, cross section, line energy
(a) 0.355 J/mm and (b) 0.830 J/mm. Simulation: Static beam, 250 × 200 cells (1.25×1.0
mm), beam diameter: 72 cells (350 µm), Beam Power (a)2.13/∆t (b) 2.5/∆t and duration:
d
(a)1440 (b) 2880 time steps
te

local wetting and capillary forces and which are far away from the half circle
geometry. Thus, in order to get a well-defined melt pool geometry high
powder densities are favorable.
p
ce

4.4. Stochastic Powder Layer

In the following, the influence of the random character of the powder
layer on the final shape of the re-solidified melt pool is investigated. Fig-
ure 9 (top) shows different cross sections of a molten line in TiAl6V4. The
Ac

geometric appearance of the re-solidified melt pools is strongly dependent

on the local powder density and arrangement, wetting of the melt with the
powder particles, etc. The surface curvature may be concave or convex and
the orientation of the surface may extremely deviate from the normal direc-
tion. Altogether, the resulting melt pool geometry is not well-defined. The
identical effect is observed for the numerical results, figure 9 (bottom). In
all simulations the packing density is approximately the experimental one of
about 55%. The findings of the numerical simulation are completely consis-

17

Page 17 of 26
 39 % 51 % 55%

t
ip
cr
63% 67% 74%

us
an
100 cells = 0.5 mm

Figure 8: Melt pool geometry after re-solidification for different particle packing densities.
M
By increasing the particle packing density from 39% to 74% the melt pool shape gets more
and more well-defined. (250 × 200 cells (1.25×1.0 mm), beam diameter: 72 cells( 350 µm),
beam irradiation time: 3000 time steps, Beam power: 3.0/∆t (energy: 1.04 J/mm))
d

tent with the experimental observation. The stochastic nature of the powder
layer is thus a major cause for the chaotic melt pool geometry.
te

4.5. Track Formation and Process Map

p

In order to investigate the influence of the processing parameters, the

morphology of molten lines in powder beds is analyzed by producing 2D lines
ce

with different beam powers and scan speeds. The alteration of the molten
and re-solidified line with increasing line energy (decreasing scan speed at
constant beam power) is depicted in figure 10. For a too low line energy,
Ac

the powder doesn’t or only slightly gets molten. Increasing the line energy
leads at first to the formation of small droplets which grow with increasing
energy. Eventually, the droplets stick together and form a closed molten and
re-solidified surface.
Figure 11 shows the consolidated line at constant line energy but for
different velocities and powers. The main characteristics of the lines, the
disintegration into droplets, seems not to be dependent on the processing
parameters if the line energy is constant. This is also true for different powder
beds. Nevertheless, the resulting structure is unique for each parameter

18

Page 18 of 26
 t
ip
cr
us
100 cells = 0.5 mm

an
Figure 9: Stochastic effect of randomly packed powder layers on the melt pool geometry
for identical packing densities of 55 %. Top: Experimental result for the titanium alloy
TiAl6V4 (beam mean diameter: 350 µm, line energy: 0.83 J/mm. Bottom: Numerical
results (250 × 200 cells (1.25×1.0 mm), beam diameter: 72 cell (350 µm), Beam power:
M
2.5/∆t, duration: 2880 time steps)

combination since the dynamics of the melt pool driven by the capillary
d
forces plays a significant role during solidification (figure 11).
The dynamic behaviour of the melt can be observed during the formation
te

of the track in Figure 12. It is important to notice that the formation of the
droplets (balling) doesn’t seem to be the result of a breakup of a long melt
pool (Rayleigh instability). The droplets develop already during melting
p

under the strong influence of the local powder arrangement, wetting, gravity,
and capillary forces.
ce

Figure 13 shows the resulting structures in a processing map. The process

maps was created to show the combinations of electron beam power and scan
speed at which the different track types formed (Childs et al. (2005)). The
Ac

straight lines represent lines of constant energy. Obviously, the morphology

along lines of constant energy is invariable. A classification in four different
areas is evident; A: not molten, B: small semicircle droplets, C: large semicir-
cle droplets, D: closed line. The transition between the different areas is not
sharp but continuous and it is governed by the line energy. Putting all to-
gether, the line energy seems to dominate the resulting morphology although
the melt pool dynamics is rather vigorous.
Although the 2D numerical results and the 3D experimental results are
not comparable, the experimental results with equivalent line energy are also

19

Page 19 of 26
 Increasing
line energy
v Scan speed

0.02 Äx/ Ät

t
ip
0.03 Äx/ Ät

cr
0.05 Äx/ Ät

us
0.07 Äx/ Ät

0.10 Äx/ Ät

an
0.15 Äx/ Ät

0.20 Äx/ Ät
M
1mm

Figure 10: Line morphology as a function of the line energy. (1000 × 150 cells (5.0×0.75
mm), moving beam, beam diameter: 72 cells (350 µm), Beam power: 3.0/∆t (600 J/sec),
d

different scan speeds.

te

depicted in figure 13. The equivalent beam power is calculated by using the
P
dimensionless power (P ∗ = vρLD 2 ) (Elsen et al. (2008)). In order to have the
p

equivalent beam power in 2D, the area under radiation is considered. As an

example, for the experiment with line energy 0.415 J/mm (beam current 8.30
ce

A and scan speed 1200 mm/s) the equivalent beam power and scan speed
in simulation are 2.5/∆t and 0.05 ∆x/∆t respectively. The dashed lines
are showing the equivalent line energy for the experiments. The simulation
Ac

results, although only 2D, show very good agreement with the experiments.

5. Summary
This paper provides a numerical approach to simulate beam and pow-
der bed layered manufacturing processes at a mesoscopic scale. A numerical
tool on the basis of a lattice Boltzmann model is developed which allows to
predict local powder melting and re-solidification processes on the powder
level in 2D. Physical mechanisms like wetting or capillary forces as well as

20

Page 20 of 26
 v
Beam power Scan speed

6/ Ät 0.1 Äx/ Ät

t
ip
5/ Ät 0.083 Äx/ Ät

cr
4/ Ät 0.066 Äx/ Ät

us
3/ Ät 0.05 Äx/ Ät

2/ Ät 0.033 Äx/ Ät

an
1/ Ät 0.016 Äx/ Ät

1mm
M
Figure 11: Line morphology at constant line energy for different scan speeds and beam
powers. (1000 × 150 cells (5.0×0.75 mm), moving beam, beam diameter: 72 cells (350
µm) )
d

materials parameters like the influence of the stochastic powder bed get acces-
te

sible within the framework of the numerical model. Numerical experiments

demonstrate that the packing density of the powder bed has the most signif-
icant effect on the melt pool characteristics. A Processing map shows that
p

the line energy dominates the processing results at constant powder packing
density. Comparison with experimental results from selective electron beam
ce

melting demonstrates good agreement. Thus, the powder-level simulation

has been revealed as an key to understand the mechanisms and parameters
influencing consolidation and will be further developed in the future.
Ac

Acknowledgement 1. The authors gratefully acknowledge partial funding

of the German Research Council (DFG), which, within the framework of
its ’Excellence Initiative’ supports the Cluster of Excellence ’Engineering of
Advanced Materials’ at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg.

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21

Page 21 of 26
 t
ip
cr
us
an 1mm

Figure 12: Temporal evolution of melt pool during scanning. The beam (light gray) moves
M
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M
d
p te
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Ac

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 7 D: Continuous line C: Large
g semicircle droplets
B: Small semicircle droplets
Ac
6
ce
5
p 2 mm

4
te 50 Cells
d A: no or insignificant melt

26
3 2 mm

2
M

Beam power/time step

Simulation
an
1
Experiment
us
0
0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2

beam, beam diameter: 72 cells (350 µm)) and the equivalent experiment results.
Scan speed (Cell/time step)
cr
ip

Figure 13: Processing map for simulation results (1000 × 150 cells (5.0×0.75 mm), moving
t

Page 26 of 26