Rapid calculation of part scale residual stresses in powder bed additive manufacturing

Numerical modelling of thermo-mechanical residual stresses for laser powder bed fusion is complex and computationally intensive. A novel analytical model is presented here that can compute the residual stress distributions through a printed part and the baseplate quickly and reliably using phenomenological modelling. The peak residual stress for each deposited layer, needed in the model, is computed using scaling analysis. The computed residual stress distributions are tested with the corresponding independent experimentally measured and numerically computed results. The analytically calculated residual stress distributions are shown to be in good agreement with the corresponding independent results. The analytical model is shown to be 10,000 times faster than the numerical models.