Multi-Physics Informed Planning for Hybrid Metal Additive and Subtractive Manufacturing

Hybrid additive manufacturing (AM) and subtractive manufacturing (SM) processes utilize the combination of AM (e.g., LPBF and DED) and SM (e.g., milling and turning operations) to produce the final part. Due to the poor surface roughness resulting from the uneven melting of powders in AM, the subtractive process is a necessary finishing operation to improve the surface roughness of the AM part. The hybrid AM/SM technology combines the benefits of AM and SM processes to create complex geometry while introducing good surface finish and compressive stress to prevent crack initiation. However, the relationship between large process parameter space and the residual stress/distortion in the part is not well understood, which impedes the adoption of hybrid AM/SM to minimize the residual stress in the final product. To expedite the process optimization, we establish a pipeline for the sequential modeling of additive manufacturing (AM) and subtractive manufacturing (SM) processes. Key accomplishments achieved under this study include (1) development of thermal abstraction technique for the AM process to speed up the macroscale level heat transfer analysis based on the manufacturing factors including scanning vector, laser power, dwelling time, etc.; (2) development of the sequentially coupled thermal-mechanical model to predict the residual stress and distortion after AM process by passing the temperature history obtained from heat transfer analysis to the mechanical analysis at each time point; (3) validation of the thermal-mechanical model for AM using thin-wall structure from literature and cantilever beam structure from UNT’s experiments data; (4) conduction of the parametric study on the chamber temperature and part design in the AM process to demonstrate how the temperature gradient and supporting structure affect the residual stress and distortion; (5) exploration of macro and micro scale models to predict the bulk and surface residual stress after cutting; (6) applying the developed modeling framework to tailoring the hybrid AM/SM process. To support model verification and demonstration, we print cantilever beam structure with different supporting structure designs and cutting strategies to study how these factors affect the final part residual stress and distortion. The data collected in the printing and cutting process is used to examine the applicability of the developed simulation tool.