A phase field methodology for simulating the microstructure evolution during laser powder bed fusion in-situ alloying process

A recently-developed [1] multi-component phase field model has been utilized to investigate microstructure evolution during in-situ alloying of a blended elemental Ti-1Al-8V-5Fe alloy powder via the Laser Powder Bed Fusion process. The process of in-situ alloying, where elemental powder is used instead of pre-alloyed powder, was studied by performing two simulations having: (1) a uniform initial composition, and (2) a spatially varying initial composition to represent different powder particles. Specifically, the grain morphology, solute distribution, competitive growth and nucleation under the two different scenarios were simulated and compared. To assist the microstructure simulations, a macro-scale finite element model was developed to simulate the heat transfer during LPBF process. The thermal history data calculated by the finite element model was provided to the phase field model in order to simulate transient dendritic growth behaviour. The results show that a set of evenly-spaced columnar dendrites form in the uniform initial composition case, whereas when the initial composition is spatially varying, non-uniform dendrites having elongated shape can develop. It is also shown that competitive growth between dendrites is influenced by nucleation. For the spatially varying initial composition case, the results indicate that full alloying is difficult to achieve during the LPBF printing process; this incomplete alloying greatly influences the dendrite morphology and solute distribution.