A Finite Element Analysis of the Effects of Preheating Substrate Temperature and Power Input on Selective Laser Melting

Abstract

Several parameters are defined before the Selective Laser Melting printing process, which may depend on the manufacturer of the equipment, but in general, we commonly encounter hatch distance, scanning speed, layer thickness, laser power input, scanning strategy, overlap distance, and substrate preheating temperature as the parameters that mainly define the printing process. The last parameter is the focus of this study, which is applied to a finite element model to simulate temperature distributions over one layer thickness of the powder bed. The substrate temperature and power input affect the cooling rates and temperature gradients imposed on the powder bed, consequently influencing the component’s final property, surface finishing, and accuracy (dimensioning tolerances). The current FEM model showed that the preheat substrate temperature played different roles depending on which power input is used; however, there is an observed trend that is the reduction in temperature gradients in the powder bed overall when higher substrate temperatures are used.