Numerical simulation of temperature field on complicated parts during plasma deposition dieless manufacturing

A hybrid Gauss-double-Ellipse heat source model and a radiation-convection model were introduced to simulate plasma arc heat source and thermal boundary conditions.To improve the computational efficiency and reproduce the forming process, element Death &Birth and adaptive mesh techniques were used especially. Moreover, APDL code was developed to optimize fabrication process of a complicated part by plasma deposition dieless manufacturing, and some experiments were also conducted.Numerical and experimental results show that symmetrical jump-scanned paths together with suitable heat input and cooling approaches are effectively to improve the temperature distribution of parts and free contractility of weld, and thus lower stress level and hot crackability can be obtained, which eventually improve the possibly-intended formability.