A Versatile SPH Modeling Framework for Coupled Microfluid-Powder Dynamics in Additive Manufacturing: Binder Jetting, Material Jetting, Directed Energy Deposition and Powder Bed Fusion

The present work proposes a versatile computational modeling framework for simulating coupled microfluid-powder dynamics problems involving thermo-capillary flow and reversible phase transitions. A liquid and a gas phase are interacting with a solid phase that is assumed to consist of a substrate and several arbitrarily-shaped mobile rigid bodies while simultaneously considering surface tension and wetting effects. All phases are spatially discretized using smoothed particle hydrodynamics because its Lagrangian nature is beneficial in the context of dynamically changing interface topologies. The proposed modeling framework is especially suitable for meso- and microscale modeling of complex physical phenomena in additive manufacturing processes such as binder jetting, material jetting, directed energy deposition, and powder bed fusion. To this end, the generality and robustness of the computational modeling framework is demonstrated by several application-motivated examples in three dimensions. In summary, the proposed modeling framework can serve as a valuable tool for detailed studies of different additive manufacturing processes and thus help to increase the fundamental understanding of relevant process physics.