Development of Holistic homogeneous model of selective laser melting based on Lattice Boltzmann method: Qualitative simulation

Additive manufacturing (AM) technologies are developing fast in recent years. Many of them, such as Selective Laser Sintering/Melting (SLS/SLM) and also Laser Cladding, deal with materials in different states of matter that are changed during processing. The holistic numerical model based on Lattice Boltzmann and cellular automata methods (LBM-CA) is currently being developed for simulation of the laser assisted AM processes where changes of the physical state of matter are essential. The presented qualitative results are mainly related to melting and solidification of the powder bed under the influence of a moving laser beam considering free surface flow, wettability, surface tension and other relevant physical phenomena showing effectiveness of the proposed holistic and homogeneous modelling approach. In this work, we also discuss the potential 3D extension and applications of the model.