Awad B.S. Alquaity
Department of Mechanical Engineering, KFUPM, Dhahran 31261, Saudi Arabia; Interdisciplinary Research Center for Hydrogen and Energy Storage, KFUPM, Dhahran 31261, Saudi Arabia
Deposition of spatter particles on the build plate during
selective laser melting processes have a negative impact on
mechanical properties of the additively manufactured part. A
majority of the spatter particles ejected during the melting
processes are transported by inert gas flow through the
chamber, however, depending on the spatter size, some spatter
may still be deposited on the build plate. Therefore, it is
essential to predict the spatter removal rate for a given spatter size and identify the regions within the build plate that are susceptible to spatter deposit. In this vein, the current work focuses on numerically modelling the spatter trajectories in the build chamber using the Eulerian-Lagrangian approach. The spatter particle trajectories are computed for various spatter diameters and ejection angles for the baseline design. At the gas flow rate considered, the spatter particles travel further when they are ejected at 40° or larger angle, however some spatter is still deposited on the build plate. A minor modification to the inlet nozzle diameter is proposed by reducing the diameter to 6 mm. The new design of the inlet nozzle increases the gas velocity and the inert gas flow is able to transport spatter particles of all sizes beyond the build plate.