SUMMARY

Additive manufacturing (AM) gained lots of attention in the manufacturing industry due to its ability to produce complex geometries and lighter weight parts. The additive building process involves in rapid heating and solidification that produces high temperature gradient. The lack of control of the process results in undesired part distortion. Most modelling work done for distortion prediction is through finite element method (FEM), which requires significant computational power. This research work, on the other hand, aims to develop a computational efficient physics based analytical model for the prediction of the distortion in AM that can be extended to arbitrary materials and part geometries. The analytical model starts with the temperature profile prediction, followed by thermal stress and residual stress modelling. The predicted stress is then served as an input for distortion prediction. The scan strategy will be included by considering the material property change due to previous laser steps. The geometry of the built part will be included by introduction of heat sinks at the boundary surface. The analytical distortion prediction will be developed based on the surface displacement model and extended from 1D to 3D prediction. The developed model will be validated step by step by comparison to the experimental data or FEM calculation. As it is studied and developed, the proposed model should be able to provide accurate 3D prediction to the part distortion within a short computing time.