Process-structure-property modelling for efficient manufacture

A talk given by Professor Seán Leen, organised by Prakash Srirangam of the Warwick Manufacturing Group.

There is a global drive for digitalisation in industry for increased efficiency, improved customisation and cost benefits. Additive manufacturing and the use of digital twins are specific examples of important technologies which form part of this drive. The I-Form Centre for Advanced Manufacturing in Ireland is targeted at the development of digital twins for AM, with a focus on powder bed fusion (PBF) processes for metals. An obstacle for increased uptake of the benefits of PBF by industry is a lack of understanding of and caution about mechanical properties. Specific examples include concern about anisotropic (build orientation) effects and sample size effects. Within I-Form, along with international collaborators, we are developing and implementing multi-scale, multi-physics methods for process-structure-property-performance simulation of metal additive manufacture, with a view to thus training machine learning models as the basis for digital twins. Some examples of components of this multi-scale, multi-physics approach will be presented, including some recent work on (i) phase field modelling of microstructure evolution during heat treatment for a Ti alloy (see below), (ii) single- and poly-crystal plasticity modelling of PBF metals for anisotropic effects (see above), (iii) thermo-metallurgical modelling combined with a physically-based analytical model to determine the temperature-dependent, salient mechanical tensile properties of PBF Ti alloy, including yield strength, uniform elongation and flow stress, and (iv) component level thermo-mechanical modelling of additive manufacture for residual stress and distortion prediction.

Seán Leen is the Established Chair of Mechanical Engineering at University of Galway since December 2008. He previously worked as an Associate Professor and Reader at the University of Nottingham (1999-2008), where he completed his PhD with Prof Tom Hyde (1995-1998) and in the offshore oil and gas industry (1991-1995) with MCS International (now Wood Group Kenny). Seán has significant experience in large collaborative research projects, including principal investigator (PI) funding by SFI, EPSRC, ESA, industry and other sources, such as Irish Research Council, totalling about €10m as PI, primarily covering themes such as macro-, meso- and micro-scale materials modelling with application to structural integrity design, fatigue, fretting, wear, corrosion, plasticity etc and manufacturing processes, for a range of engineering applications including offshore, aerospace, power generation and energy systems. This includes PI research in the Rolls-Royce UTCs for Advanced Manufacturing and Gas Turbine Transmission Systems at University of Nottingham (UK), and within the MaREI (Marine Renewable Energy Ireland) Centre for Marine, Climate and Energy (Ireland). Seán is presently a co-PI in the I-Form Centre for Advanced Manufacturing in Ireland, with a focus on computational solid mechanics for process-structure-property-performance in additive manufacturing of metals and PI of the TRANSFORRM project on tailored manufacturing for safe, sustainable offshore wind turbine support structure materials.