An Approach to Upscaling SPPARKS Generated Synthetic Microstructures of Additively Manufactured Metals

Additive manufacturing (AM) of metal parts can save time, energy, and produce parts that cannot otherwise be made with traditional machining methods. Near final part geometry is the goal for AM, but material microstructures are inherently different from those of wrought materials as they arise from a complex temperature history associated with the additive process. It is well known that strength and other properties of interest in engineering design follow from microstructure and temperature history. Because of complex microstructure morphologies and spatial heterogeneities, properties are heterogeneous and reflect underlying microstructure. This report describes a method for distributing properties across a finite element mesh so that effects of complex heterogeneous microstructures arising from additive manufacturing can be systematically incorporated into engineering scale calculations without the need for conducting a nearly impossible and time consuming effort of meshing material details. Furthermore, the method reflects the inherent variability in AM materials by making use of kinetic Monte Carlo calculations to model the AM process associated with a build.