A Strategy to Determine the Optimal Parameters for Producing High Density Part in Selective Laser Melting Process

Finding the processing conditions which can produce high density components using Selective Laser Melting (SLM) technique based on trial-and-error is costly and time consuming. With a given SLM machine characteristics (e.g., laser power, scanning speed, laser spot size and laser type), powder material and powder size distribution, the present study proposes an approach to reduce the time and cost in searching optimal parameters for fabricating fully dense parts. The proposed method include several simulation models which are powder bed simulation, Monte Carlo ray tracing simulation, Finite Element Heat Transfer simulation and surrogate modeling. These simulation models are employed to find the viable processing parameters to produce high density component. The experimental results show that the proposed methods results in a maximum component density of 99.97%, an average component density of 99.89% and a maximum standard deviation of 0.03%.