A Method to Determine Local Stress Fields in Microstructure Features Produced by Additive Manufacturing

Metal power-based additive manufacturing (PAM) processes typically result in microstructures with a texture and columnar grains of different grain sizes, which affect the mechanical properties of the material. In this work, a method is developed to better represent the local granular stress fields within the microstructure. This is accomplished by converting a digital image segmentation from a synthetic microstructure into a shape-preserving finite element model with a microstructure-informed constitutive model that describes the mechanical behavior of solidified material produced by PAM. The new method to develop the finite element model allows the local stress intensification to be better captured in the vicinity of the grain boundary and helps with the prediction of defects and void formation in the material.