A Novel Approach to Predict the Process-Induced Mechanical Behavior of Additively Manufactured Materials

The grain structure and texture of additively manufactured materials depend strongly on the local temperature gradients during the solidification of the material. These grain structures and textures influence the mechanical behavior, ranging from isotropy to transversal and orthotropic symmetry. In the present contribution, a cellular automaton is used to model the grain growth during selective electron beam melting. The resulting grain structures and textures serve as input for a mesoscopic mechanical model. The mechanical behavior on the mesoscale is modeled by means of gradient-enhanced crystal plasticity, applying the finite element method. Computational homogenization is applied to determine the resulting macroscopic elastic and plastic properties of the additively manufactured metals. A general orthotropic yield criterion is identified by means of the initial yield loci computed with mesoscopic simulations of representative volume elements. The numerical results are partly validated with experimental data.