SIMULATION TOOL FOR MATERIAL BEHAVIOUR PREDICTION IN ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING

Simulation tools play an important role not only in terms of understanding the processes taking place in the production, and the possibility to prevent failures, but ultimately, and most importantly, to optimize the production process. Thus, simulation tools should be able to work with many input parameters. The processes in which many parameters influence the final quality of the part, and its properties is metal additive manufacturing (AM). The volume of support material used in the metal AM process is also of importance, as its reduction plays an important role in terms of cost-effectiveness, which can be increased by minimizing support structures. The paper deals with the numerical simulation of the metal AM process. The simulation analyses with the same input parameters were performed, comparing each other the support material distribution, volume fraction or shape deviation with respect to the conventional support generation method and the function allowing the support generation by means of the optimization mode. Less variation in the shape of the part, variation in its volume fraction, variation in the density of the generated support structures as well as variation in the spacing of the generated support structure was achieved by using the support generation optimization mode.