Numerical analysis of the process of electron beam additive deposition with vertical feed of wire material

Abstract

Introduction. At present, additive technologies are actively developing all over the world and are becoming more and more widely used in industrial production. The use of electron beams in additive processes of directed energy input, the so-called Directed Energy Deposition (DED) technologies, has several advantages, the main ones being the flexibility of controlling the spatial and energy characteristics of the thermal source and the presence of a vacuum protective environment. The standard scheme for additive electron beam deposition is melting of a wire filler material fed from the side into the electron beam affected area, but this additive electron beam deposition pattern does not provide a uniform thermal impact in the deposited area. The most effective method for electron-beam deposition is vertical wire feeding, which provides the most stable formation of the liquid metal bath and, consequently, the deposited beads. At the same time, so far there are no results of numerical analysis of this process in order to determine its main regularities. The aim of the work is to carry out numerical experiments for qualitative analysis and determination of the regularities of formation of deposited beads and transfer of filler material, the dependence of the geometric characteristics of the obtained beads on the influence of vapor pressure forces, direction and value of the azimuthal angle of heat sources. The research methods were a series of numerical experiments, which analyzed variants of the electron-beam surfacing process at the location of the surfacing rate vector in the action plane of electron beams and perpendicular to this plane to determine the basic regularities of deposited beads formation and transfer of filler material, dependence of geometric characteristics of obtained beads on the influence of vapor pressure forces, direction of heat sources and the azimuth angle of heat sources. Results and discussion. It is found that the geometric characteristics of the deposited beads significantly depend on the relative position of the deposition velocity vector with respect to the plane of the electron beams, and consideration of the vapor pressure has a significant influence on the results of numerical simulation of the weld pool formation and the hydrodynamic processes occurring in it. In this case, the location of the deposition velocity vector perpendicular to the action plane of the electron beams, there is a more uniform geometry of the deposited metal beads, and increasing the azimuthal angle of the heat sources increases the probability of spitting to the periphery of the deposited bead, which is associated with limitation of the melt motion in the longitudinal direction by the vapor pressure forces.