Metallic AM technologies can offer substantial cost savings on critical parts by reducing machining costs. By some estimates, as much as 20% of a part’s cost is due to post-build machining to remove surface roughness effects. Another major potential for savings in AM is the ability to build geometrically complex structures. This allows for an assembly to be made up of fewer individual parts that need to be fastened or joined together. However, these complex geometries result in hard-to-access surfaces that cannot be easily machined. If an AM part can retain its as-printed surfaces (or be only selectively machined) and still meet its performance requirements, that is a huge win. The problem is, until now there have been no reliable methods to computationally predict the impact of an AM as-printed surface (APS) on fatigue performance for metal parts…leading to the need for large amounts of testing.

VEXTEC's VPS-MICRO software has enhanced capabilities to accurately predict fatigue performance of AM APS parts. FEA packages like Abaqus can be used to model the surface roughness resulting from APS features, expressed as a random field of surface features (peaks and valleys). Abaqus predicts the structural distribution of stress concentrations of the roughness, while microstructural differences between the APS layer and the core material can be modeled within VPS-MICRO. The modeling fidelity is robust enough such that selective machining protocols can be evaluated and optimized virtually. This allows you to reduce and target your physical tests to only those necessary, saving time and resources.

Let's get a better picture of fatigue performance for your AM parts. Read more about our as-printed surface work on our case studies webpage, and drop me a line if you'd like to discuss further!

https://vextec.com/case-studies/