Modeling the Microstructure Evolution During Additive Manufacturing of Ti6Al4V: A Comparison Between Electron Beam Melting and Selective Laser Melting

Beam-based additive manufacturing (AM) is an innovative technique in which parts are built layerwise, starting from the material in powder form. As a developing manufacturing technique, achievement of excellent mechanical properties in the final part is of paramount importance for the mainstream adoption of this technique in industrial manufacturing lines. At the same time, AM offers an unprecedented opportunity to precisely control the manufacturing conditions locally within the part during build, enabling local influence on the formation of the texture and microstructure. In order to achieve the control of microstructure by tailoring the AM machine parameters, a full understanding and modeling of the heat transfer and microstructure evolution processes is needed. Here, we show the implementation of the non-equilibrium equations for phase formation and dissolution in an AM modeling framework. The model is developed for the Ti6Al4V alloy and allows us to show microstructure evolution as given by the AM process. The developed capability is applied to the cases of electron beam melting and selective laser melting AM techniques to explain the significantly different microstructures observed in the two processes.