Abstract
Laser metal deposition with wire (LMD-w) is one of the emerging additive manufacturing (AM) technologies for large-scale aerospace components due to high deposition rates and material efficiency. However, it often results in undesired stresses and distortions due to non-uniform expansion and contraction of material during the printing. Controlling of inter-layer time, preheating and clamping is the effective method to mitigate the thermally induced stress and deformation. In this study, the effect of inter-layer time on the part distortion is investigated using finite element method (FEM). The model accounts for actual tool path, power and cooling conditions. The results show that the model effectively captures the fluctuation of the Ti-6Al-4V plate during printing. Also, it shows an asymmetric distortion on the plate edges. Ultimately, the sequentially coupled thermal-stress simulation provided a quantitative understanding of the inter-layer cooling time on the Ti plate distortion for the large-scale LMD-w process.
