Thermal Modeling of 304L Stainless Steel Selective Laser Melting

This paper describes the continuum thermal modeling of the Selective Laser Melting (SLM) process for 304L stainless steel using Abaqus. Temperature dependent thermal properties are obtained from literature and incorporated into the model capturing the change from powder to fully dense stainless steel. The thermal model predicts the temperature history for multi-track scans under different process parameters (laser power, effective scanning speed, hatch spacing) which is used to extract the melt-pool size, solidification rate, and temperature gradients. These are compared to experimental results obtained from a Renishaw AM250 in terms of the melt pool size, grain structure, and cell spacing. These experimental results are used to tune unknown simulation parameters required by the continuum model including the optical penetration depth and thermal conductivity multiplier for the molten region. This allows the model to yield predictive simulations of melt pool size and solidification structure of SLM 304L stainless steel.