Microstructure Modelling of Additive Manufacturing of Alloy 718

Abstract: In recent years, additive manufacturing (AM) of Alloy 718 has received increasing interest in the field of manufacturing engineering owing to its attractive features compared to those of conventional manufacturing methods. The ability to produce complicated geometries, low cost of retooling, and control of the microstructure are some of the advantages of the AM process over traditional manufacturing methods. Nevertheless, during the building process, the build material undergoes complex thermal conditions owing to the inherent nature of the process. This results in phase transformation from liquid to solid and solid state. Thus, it creates microstructural gradients in the built objects, and as a result,heterogeneous material properties. The manufacturing process, including the following heat treatment that is used to minimise the heterogeneity, will cause the additively manufactured material to behave differently when compared to components produced by conventional manufacturing methods. Therefore, understanding the microstructure formation during the building and subsequent post-heat treatment is important, which is the objective of this work. Alloy 718 is a nickel-iron based super alloy that is widely used in the aerospace industry and in the gas turbine power plants for making components subjected tohigh temperatures. Good weldability, good mechanical properties at high temperatures, and high corrosion resistance make this alloy particularly suitablefor these applications. Nevertheless, the manufacturing of Alloy 718 components through traditional manufacturing methods is time-consuming and expensive. For example, machining of Alloy 718 to obtain the desired shape is difficult and resource-consuming, owing to significant material waste. Therefore, the application of novel non-conventional processing methods, such as AM, seems to be a promising technique for manufacturing near-net-shape complex components.In this work, microstructure modelling was carried out by using multiphase-field modelling to model the microstructure evolution in electron beam melting (EBM) and laser metal powder directed energy deposition (LMPDED) of Alloy 718 and x subsequent heat treatments. The thermal conditions that are generated during the building process were used as input to the models to predict the as-built microstructure. This as-built microstructure was then used as an input for the heat treatment simulations to predict the microstructural evolution during heat treatments. The results showed smaller dendrite arm spacing (one order of magnitude smaller than the casting material) in these additive manufactured microstructures, which creates a shorter diffusion length for the elements compared to the cast material. In EBM Alloy 718, this caused the material to have a faster homogenisation during in-situ heat treatment that resulting from the elevated powder bed temperature (> 1000 °C). In addition, the compositional segregation that occurs during solidification was shown to alter the local thermodynamic and kinetic properties of the alloy. This was observed in the predicted TTT and CCT diagrams using the JMat Pro software based on the predicted local segregated compositions from the multiphase-field models. In the LMPDED Alloy 718 samples, this resulted in the formation of δ phase in the interdendritic region during the solution heat treatment. Moreover, this resulted in different-size precipitation of γ'/γ'' in the inter-dendritic region and in the dendrite core. Themicro structure modelling predictions agreed well with the experimental observations. The proposed methodology used in this thesis work can be an appropriate tool to understand how the thermal conditions in AM affect themicro structure formation during the building process and how these as-built microstructures behave under different heat treatments.