A review of metal additive manufacturing technologies: Mechanism of defects formation and simulation of melting and solidification phenomena in laser powder bed fusion process

Abstract

In this review, the analysis of melting and solidification phenomena and the mechanism of the occurrence of defects as well as the analysis of melting and solidification using the numerical simulation in laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) process were introduced. In addition, the strategies of suppression of defects were described. The melting and solidification phenomena during LPBF process are relatively similar to those during welding. Since the plume brings about the strong recoil pressure on the melt pool, the keyhole takes place. And when the depth of keyhole becomes more than a threshold, the keyhole pore remains at the bottom of melt pool. Since the plume also brings about spattering and blows out powder, the gas pores are prone to occur easily. The micro-simulation of melting and solidification enables to reproduce the real phenomena. The macro-simulation of melting and solidification phenomena is one of the effective tools to predict the optimum fabrication condition. In order to prevent the occurrence of defects, it is significant not only to obtain the optimum fabrication condition using the process map but also to develop the simulation software. In addition, the use of the monitoring and feedback control system is greatly effective. Therefore the development of the cyber-physical system is needed.