Codina Álvarez, F. J. (2019). Improvement of a Lagrangian approach for the multi-physical simulation of powder based additive manufacturing laser processes [Diploma Thesis, Technische Universität Wien]. reposiTUm. https://doi.org/10.34726/hss.2019.65960
Among all the additive manufacturing technologies, metal powder based techniques become very suitable when coming to produce custom functional components of complex geometries within an unbeatable time. This technology is in development and some quality defects are still to be reduced, to achieve this goal a great understanding of the process is needed. Multiphysical simulations allow us to analyze the process without involving the huge cost of systematic experimental studies. OpenFOAM is an open-source simulation environment aimed for the solution of continuum mechanics problems, especially computational fluid dynamics (CFD), based on C++. It has been used by the Institute of production Engineering and Photonic Technologies of the TU Wien to develop during the last ten years a simulation software designed to acquire better knowledge of laser material processing. The Lagragian library is a very useful tool for the simulation of metal powder based techniques and thanks to its combination with the Finite-Volume approach some promisisng results have been obtained. Nevertheless, particles interaction implementation require a closer look, for this reason the coupling of discrete element methods (DEM) and volume of fluid (VOF) requires further work to improve the precision of the simulation results.