No abstract

No abstract

The aerospace industry is now beginning to adopt Additive Manufacturing (AM), both for new aircraft design and to help improve aircraft availability (aircraft sustainment). However, MIL-STD 1530 highlights that to certify airworthiness, the operational life of the airframe must be determined by a damage tolerance analysis. MIL-STD 1530 also states that in this process, the role of testing is merely to validate or correct the analysis. Consequently, if AM-produced parts are to be used as load-carrying members, it is important that the d a / d N versus ΔK curves be determined and, if possible, a valid mathematical representation determined. The present paper demonstrates that for AM Ti-6Al-4V, AM 316L stainless steel, and AM AerMet 100 steel, the d a / d N versus ΔK curves can be represented reasonably well by the Hartman-Schijve variant of the NASGRO crack growth equation. It is also shown that the variability in the various AM d a / d N versus Δ K curves is captured reasonably well by using the curve determined for conventionally manufactured materials and allowing for changes in the threshold and the cyclic fracture toughness terms.

A critical element for the design, characterization, and certification of materials and products produced by additive manufacturing processes is the ability to accurately and efficiently model the associated materials and processes. This is necessary for tailoring these processes to endow the associated products with proper geometrical and functional features. In an effort to address these needs in a computationally elegant and at the same time physically realistic manner, this paper presents the development of a methodology for simulating particle-based additive manufacturing processes which employs the Discrete Element Method (DEM). The details of the DEM-based methodology are presented first and the approach is demonstrated on a pair of test problems involving laser sintering of metal powders. The paper concludes with a discussion on how this approach may be generalized to broader classes of additive manufacturing systems, and details are given regarding future work which must be accomplished in order to further develop the present methodology.

No abstract