Phase-field based modeling and simulation for selective laser melting techniques in additive manufacturing

In this study, we develop a phase-field model to describe the solid–liquid phase changes, heat conduction phenomena, during the selective laser melting process. This model is based on the variational principle of minimizing the free energy functional. The proposed model integrates the phase-field equation and the energy equation, which are used to capture the dynamical behavior of the interfacial evolution. We use the semi-implicit Crank–Nicolson scheme and central difference to ensure second-order accuracy in time and space. The numerical scheme is unconditional energy stable. This paper rigorously proves the energy stability of the phase-field model of the Selective Laser Melting process, which confirms the numerical stability and the physical rationality of the solution. Various numerical experiments are performed to verify the robustness of our proposal model. This model can effectively simulate the energy transfer and shape structure changes of the products during the selective laser melting manufacturing process, which provides a reliable guarantee for predicting and optimizing the quality and performance of the selective laser melting process additive manufacturing process.