Additive manufacture (3D printing) of metals

This is a PhD research project in Mechanical Engineering. This EPSRC industrial CASE studentship is supported by Renishaw. This research relates to fundamental process understanding and process control in the additive manufacture (3D printing) of metals, specifically related to metal powder bed fusion additive manufacturing systems that build complex metal parts for a wide range of industrial applications. We will use optical instrumentation to monitor residual stresses that can arise during the build process. These measurements will be used to validate multi-physics finite element models, in order to provide greater understanding and control of the manufacturing process.

The specific objectives of the project are to investigate simplified models to predict the residual stress distribution that arises during a build process, and to validate these models against experimental measurements. The project methodology will require initial measurements on the open-architecture PBF system developed at Heriot-Watt [1]. The modelling and metrology will build on initial research conducted with the open-architecture system [2]. Subsequently, experiments will be performed on commercial PBF machines at Renishaw and used to improve the calibration and flexibility of commercial process planning software.

[1] P. Bidare, R.R.J Maier, R.J. Beck, J.D. Shephard and A.J. Moore, "An open-architecture metal powder bed fusion system for in-situ process measurements", Additive Manufacturing 16 177-185 (2017) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.addma.2017.06.007

[2] P. Bidare, I. Bitharas, R.M. Ward, M.M. Attallah and A.J. Moore, "Fluid and particle dynamics in laser powder bed fusion", Acta Materialia 142 107-120 (2018) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actamat.2017.09.051