Machining and Material Removal Process

Special-purpose techniques and user subroutines are available for machining and material removal processes, which often follow an additive manufacturing process. These internal built-in user subroutines are accessed by starting names and types with "ABQ_" as described below.

In a machining process or a cutting operation that often follows a powder-bed type or a fusion deposition modeling (FDM)-type additive manufacturing process, the material is removed either by an electrical discharge machining (EDM) operation or by a cutting tool. A toolpath defines a path of the operation in space that describes how the material is removed over time.

 

See Also
Pattern-based eigenstrain analysis
Progressive Element Activation
Defining Moving or Stationary Nonuniform Heat Flux in User Subroutine UMDFLUX
Accessing Abaqus Table Collections
Accessing Abaqus Event Series Data
*EVENT SERIES
*EVENT SERIES TYPE
*TABLE COLLECTION
*PARAMETER TABLE
*PARAMETER TABLE TYPE
*PROPERTY TABLE
*PROPERTY TABLE TYPE

Specifying Progressive Element Activation for Material Removal

The removal of material is simulated using progressive element activation in a structural or a thermal analysis. The cross-section of the bead of the material being removed is assumed to be rectangular. The following steps are required to define the removal process completely:

  • Define the motion of the nozzle in an event series. The event series must have a least one field that defines the “on/off” state of the tool. Optionally, the event series can also define the varying height and width of the cutting operation, and the local direction vector z 1 , that defines the orientation of the tool, in five additional fields.
  • Create a table collection with a name that begins with "ABQ_AM". The table collection must contain parameter tables of types "ABQ_AM_MaterialRemoval" and "ABQ_AM_MaterialRemoval_Bead".
  • In the parameter table of type "ABQ_AM_MaterialRemoval", include a reference to the event series for the cutting tool motion.
  • In the parameter table of type "ABQ_AM_MaterialRemoval_Bead", define the process parameters, such as the height and width of the bead. If the height and the width are both set to zero, Abaqus assumes the height to be equal to the average height of a finite element in the element set referenced from the progressive element activation and the width is large enough to cover the entire element set.
  • Optionally, add a parameter table of type "ABQ_AM_MaterialRemoval_VariableBeadSize" to define the field positions in the event series that define the height and the width of the material removal tool’s cross-section.
  • Optionally, add a parameter table of type "ABQ_AM_MaterialRemoval_5AxisStrategy" to define the field positions in the event series that define the three components of the local direction vector z 1 of the tool.
  • Optionally, define a parameter table of type "ABQ_AM_MaterialRemoval_Advanced", to specify advanced settings for the element deactivation process.
  • Refer to the table collection in the progressive element activation.

A dedicated collection of parameter table, property table, and event series types is available to include all of the definitions required by special-purpose techniques for additive manufacturing. You can use the abaqus fetch utility to obtain the file containing all of the type definitions of parameter tables, property tables, and event series required by the special-purpose techniques for additive manufacturing as follows:

abaqus fetch job=ABQ_am_special_purpose_types.inp