Large-Scale Phase Field Simulations of Microstructures during Additive Manufacturing: Challenges and Approaches

During additive manufacturing (AM) by powder bed fusion processes, the material undergoes steep excursions in temperature at rates high enough to cause significant deviation from equilibrium during solidification and subsequent solid-state phase transformations occurring during subsequent cooling and post-process heat treatment. Quantitative prediction of processing-microstructure-property relationships in AM processed components is an extremely challenging endeavor that requires the development of advanced computational approaches, numerical techniques ,and implementation in state-of-the-art high-performance platforms. This talk will focus on the simulation of solidification microstructures and the effect of structural inhomogeneity on the subsequent solid-sate transformation using massively parallel phase field simulations. The computational challenges and the strategies for mitigating the challenges will be discussed.