Finite element–based numerical modeling framework for additive manufacturing process

Additive manufacturing (AM) process has extensively been used to fabricate metal parts for large variety of applications. Residual stresses are inevitable in the AM process since material experiences heating and cooling cycles. Implementing finite element (FE) analysis tool to predict residual stress distributions could be of great importance in many applications. Developing an FE-based modeling framework to accurately simulate residual stresses in a reasonably reduced computational time is highly needed. The FE-based modeling approach presented here to simulate direct metal deposition (DMD) of AISI 304 L aims to significantly reduce computation cost by implementing an adaptive mesh coarsening algorithm integrated with the FE method. Simulations were performed by the proposed approach, and the results were found in good agreement with conventional fine mesh configuration. The proposed modeling framework offers a potential solution to substantially reduce the computational time for simulating the AM process. © 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.