Size effect in selective laser melting additive manufacturing of 700 mm large component

The complex structure with large size (e.g., >500 mm) in aerospace, mould, nuclear power industry, has been urgently required for production with selective laser melting additive manufacturing (AM). Revealing the effect of the component size on the distortion could contribute to better understanding of AM and suggest control strategy for distortion reduction. Here, a method combining elastic-plasticity theory and inherent strain theory is proposed to study the size effect in AM of large size component. Firstly, the traditional thermo-mechanical coupled model based on the thermo elastic-plasticity theory is used to calculate the inherent strain of AMed parts. And a single tracked experiment was performed to confirm the availability of thermo-mechanical coupled model. Secondly, the aircraft blade of 700 mm is used to verify the availability of simulating large component deformation based on the inherent strain. Finally, the size effect of distortion and effective stress of large-size components is briefly illustrated. This manuscript provides a powerful simulation framework for predicting the distortions of large structure produced by thousands and thousands of melts in selective laser melting, and this framework could also be extended to apply in the other AM technologies, e.g., laser metal deposition, wire-arc deposition, and so on.