Dynamic simulation of powder packing structure for powder bed additive manufacturing

Powder packing structure is a critical parameter of powder bed-based additive manufacturing (AM). Experimental characterization of powder is typically limited to measuring bulk properties, whereas many numerical models of AM powder packing are based on geometrical consideration without accounting for particle-to-particle interactions. In the present paper, the powder packing dynamics is simulated using a discrete element method (DEM)-based model that solves the mechanical contact forces and moments between individual particles. As DEM uses explicit time integration, a main challenge in modeling dynamics of metallic powder packing is the need for extremely fine time increment size (e.g., in the order of 1 ns for a 10-μm-diameter particle). The effect of mass scaling, employed for speeding up the calculation, on the simulation results is examined in a test case of powder particles packed inside a box container. The calculated packing density for two different particle size distributions is validated against independent literature data for laser powder bed AM with AISI 316L stainless steel powder. The sensitivity of key input parameters (e.g., friction coefficient) is further evaluated in this test case. The powder packing model is then applied to a practical situation of binder jet AM involving rolling of multiple layers of IN718 powder particles onto a powder bed, for which the calculated packing density is also validated with independent literature data.