Quantitative investigation of gas flow, powder-gas interaction, and powder behavior under different ambient pressure levels in laser powder bed fusion

The powder motion in laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) processes causes defect and variability issues in the built products. It has been reported that the ambient pressure has a significant influence on the powder motion, but the physical effects of the ambient pressure on the gas flow, powder-gas interaction, and powder behavior are not quantitatively understood. In this work, we have developed the first three-dimensional multiphysics model for LPBF to simulate the molten pool dynamics, depression zone evolution, gas flow structure, and powder motion in a fully coupled manner. The model enables the first quantitative investigation of the gas flow, powder-gas interaction, and powder behavior in LPBF with different ambient pressure levels, all of which are difficult to measure by experiments. The simulation results show a consistent gas flow structure for all different pressure levels, but the gas flow parameters (temperature, velocity, Reynolds number, and Knudsen number) vary significantly with the ambient pressure. Four powder-gas interaction modes are defined by the gas flow around the particle and the gas-induced forces on the particle, and the interaction modes, individually or collectively, control the motion of each particle. With the changes in the ambient pressure and the gas flow parameters, the significance of the four modes to the powder motion varies, and the powder behavior (temperature, force, velocity, and ejection angle) becomes different. A new strategy is proposed to mitigate the powder motion based on the modeling results.

Automated summary

This study developed a three-dimensional multiphysics model to quantitatively investigate the effects of different ambient pressures on gas flow and powder behavior in LPBF for the first time. The results showed a consistent gas flow structure but significant variations in gas flow parameters with ambient pressure, while four powder-gas interaction modes controlled powder motion.