A study on the influence of powder packing density on the melt track in the selective laser melting process

• Main Authors: Le, Kim Quy, Tang, Chao, Wong, Chee How
• Other Authors: School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
• Format: Conference or Workshop Item
• Language: English
• Published: 2018
• Subjects: Additive Manufacturing; Selective Laser Melting; DRNTU::Engineering::Mechanical engineering::Prototyping
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/88702; http://hdl.handle.net/10220/45999
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

A numerical model was employed to mimic the selective laser melting (SLM) process. The powder bed following Gaussian distribution was generated by using the discrete element method (DEM). Different packing densities of the powder bed were generated by applying a compression force along the build direction. The melt track characteristics were simulated using a computational fluids dynamics (CFD) model. An average powder diameter of 27 μm and a layer thickness of 50 μm were used in this model. The study found that the powder packing density significantly affects the melt track characteristics. Increase in the packing density leads to an increase in the melt track height while reducing the melt track depth and melt track width.