Defining Direct Energy Deposition

You can specify options to manage a direct energy deposition simulation that mimics your additive process.

You can use direct energy deposition processes either starting from the Material Deposition Fabrication app or starting from scratch.

Note:

The steps below are based on use of the default (Built-in) schema that is embedded in the app. You can use a custom schema instead by choosing User defined as the source. A custom schema redefines the interface (dialog box) to work with a user subroutine that exposes only the options required for your process. In this case, your options might be different from those described.

See Also
About Direct Energy Deposition
  1. From the Additive Manufacturing section of the action bar, click Direct Energy Deposition .
  2. Select the part.

    The part indicates the predefined volume (part or mesh) that is filled with material, layer by layer, to become a real part as the additive manufacturing process is completed.

  3. For simulations based on a Material Deposition Fabrication print setup, decide whether to take the event series provided by the app or to replace it with an external document.
  4. For simulations without a Material Deposition Fabrication build setup or for simulations where you override the provided event series, set up the correct event series variation:

    1. Select the Bead position.
    2. Select the Event series contents, and enter the values for any bead parameters that you indicated are fixed (Bead height, Bead width, and the Nx, Ny, and Nz directions).

  5. Select Follow deformation to have inactive elements follow the model deformation.

  6. Optional: Edit the Expansion time constant.

    The expansion time constant ramps up the thermal strains at element activation. Applying the strains gradually can aid in solution convergence, especially when there is plasticity. The default constant is two times the initial time increment in the static step.

  7. Optional: Select Use local material orientation to use the local material orientation, if it exists, for deposition and element activation.
  8. Select the activation type:
    OptionDescription
    Full Uses only the Max volume fraction to activate an entire mesh element when it is filled to at least the specified amount.
    Partial Partially activates elements based on the Activation Threshold and fully activates them at the Max volume fraction.
  9. For Partial activation, enter the Activation Threshold as a fraction or decimal between 0 and 1.

    The activation threshold applies partial activation. For example, you could partially activate an element at 0.05 (5%) fill to begin simulating that area of the part.

  10. Enter the Max volume fraction to determine the amount of fill at which an element is treated as completely filled with material.
  11. Select Include heat source to include a heat source in the simulation, and specify the following:
    1. From the Energy Distribution options, select the standard that describes how heat energy is managed within the range of influence of the laser: Concentrated, Uniform, or Goldak.
    2. Enter the heat absorption coefficient data.

      You must specify an absorption coefficient, between 0 and 1, that defines the percentage of power from the heat source that is actually absorbed by the part.

      Tip: If you include temperature dependence, you can enter data in the table or right-click a cell to import data.

    3. Select Enhanced conservation to retain any heat energy that might be lost when the heat source is at the outer edges of the model.
    4. For Uniform or Goldak energy distributions, enter the subdivision order values for the x-, y-, and z-directions.