The presented numerical model solves the heat and mass transfer equations in the Laser Metal Deposition process and based on the evolution of the thermal field predicts the grainsize, the resulting hardness and evaluates the pores formation probability in an AISI 304 stainless steel. For this purpose, in a first step, the model calculates the shape of the deposited material and the variations of the temperature field. In a second step, and based on the evolution of the thermal field, the model calculates the resulting hardness of the deposited material, the grainsize and the porosity formation probability after the deposition process. Numerical results are experimentally validated, and good agreement is obtained. Consequently, besides predicting the geometry of the resulting part and the evolution of the thermal field, the developed model enables to evaluate the quality of the deposited material. Therefore, the optimum process conditions and strategy when depositing AISI 304 stainless steel can be determined without initial trial-and-error tests.“LaCaixa” foundation . In addition, this work has been founded by the H2020-
FoF13-2016 PARADDISE project (contract No.: 723440). This work has
been also carried out in the framework of the DPI2016-79889-R –
INTEGRADDI project, funded by the Spanish Ministry of Industry and
Competitiveness
