Residual stress and distortion modeling of electron beam direct manufacturing Ti-6Al-4V

In this work, a finite element model is developed for predicting the thermo-mechanical response of Ti-6Al-4V during electron beam deposition. A three-dimensional thermo-elasto-plastic analysis is performed to model distortion and residual stress in the workpiece and experimental in situ temperature, and distortion measurements are performed during the deposition of a single-bead-wide, 16-layer-high wall built for model validation. Post-process blind hole–drilling residual stress measurements are also performed. Both the in situ distortion and post-process residual stress measurements suggest that stress relaxation occurs during the deposition of Ti-6Al-4V. A method of accounting for such stress relaxation in thermo-elasto-plastic simulations is proposed where both stress and plastic strain are reset to 0, when the temperature exceeds a prescribed stress relaxation temperature. Inverse simulation is used to determine the values of the absorption efficiency and the emissivity of electron beam–deposited, wire-fed Ti-6Al-4V, as well as the appropriate stress relaxation temperature.