FLOW-3D AM
Improve Quality
Evaluate and optimize your machine parameters through additive process simulations
Accelerate Development Time
Deliver solutions to your customers faster with decreased development times and reduces experimental iterations
Ease of Use
Provide powerful simulation tools to your engineers without the need of modeling experience or code-heavy customizations
FLOW-3D AM is a powerful simulation tool for advancing additive manufacturing technologies. With precise modeling of material behaviors during melting and solidification, FLOW-3D AM empowers engineers to explore new technologies with confidence and accelerate their time to market.
Leverage simulations to gain insight into your process early in your development cycle. FLOW-3D AM focuses on where defects originate – the melt pool. Identification of trends and behaviors help engineers find process windows for better performance and quality.
Print parts with confidence
- Identify parameters that prevent defects such as porosity, lack of fusion, balling, or overheating.
- Predict in-situ material behavior that causes keyhole instabilities leading to defects.
- Evaluate which parameters deliver optimal fusion for printing challenging features or deliver improved as-printed surface finishes for better mechanical strength.
Reduce development time
- Leverage simulations to reduce the number of experimental runs and gain insights on the causes of process sensitivity to create more impactful design of experiments (DOEs).
- Use FLOW-3D (x)’s optimization engine to reach process parameter combinations not examined under current development methods, with the ability to target specific results.
- Allocate machine time and reduce material scrap from the development cycle to improve your team’s efficiency.
- Increase the technology readiness level (TRL) of your development material faster than possible with current methods.
Optimize production
- Use the optimization capabilities of FLOW-3D (x) to find process windows that enable faster production without compromising part quality through targeted simulation optimization.
- Vary process parameters such as laser power, speed, hatch spacing, energy distribution, and PSD to identify process instabilities.
- Predict parameter sets that achieve specific part quality through defect mitigation, bead dimensions, surface finish, and thermal profiles.
Test innovations
- Develop parameters for custom alloys and mixed feedstock applications.
- Discover how technology such as beam-shaping and multi-laser systems affect part quality and productivity.
- Establish working process windows for refractory alloys and other materials that pose significant challenges for AM adoption.
Print parts with confidence
- Identify parameters that prevent defects such as porosity, lack of fusion, balling, or overheating.
- Predict in-situ material behavior that causes keyhole instabilities leading to defects.
- Evaluate which parameters deliver optimal fusion for printing challenging features or deliver improved as-printed surface finishes for better mechanical strength.
Reduce development time
- Leverage simulations to reduce the number of experimental runs and gain insights on the causes of process sensitivity to create more impactful design of experiments (DOEs).
- Use FLOW-3D (x)’s optimization engine to reach process parameter combinations not examined under current development methods, with the ability to target specific results.
- Allocate machine time and reduce material scrap from the development cycle to improve your team’s efficiency.
- Increase the technology readiness level (TRL) of your development material faster than possible with current methods.
Optimize production
- Use the optimization capabilities of FLOW-3D (x) to find process windows that enable faster production without compromising part quality through targeted simulation optimization.
- Vary process parameters such as laser power, speed, hatch spacing, energy distribution, and PSD to identify process instabilities.
- Predict parameter sets that achieve specific part quality through defect mitigation, bead dimensions, surface finish, and thermal profiles.
Test innovations
- Develop parameters for custom alloys and mixed feedstock applications.
- Discover how technology such as beam-shaping and multi-laser systems affect part quality and productivity.
- Establish working process windows for refractory alloys and other materials that pose significant challenges for AM adoption.
FLOW-3D AM offers solutions for a variety of additive manufacturing applications.
- Use the discrete element method (DEM) to model powder settling and spreading accounting for particle collisions, friction, and cohesion to understand effects of powder size distribution (PSD) and spreading parameters on packing density.
- Understand the effects of PSD, layer thickness, hatch spacing, and laser parameters on fusion across several tracks and layers. Output porosity, temperature and pressure fields, thermal gradients, and cooling rates to predict defects and correlate with mechanical properties.
Understand how the powder flow rate and orientation of the nozzle affect fusion in addition to laser parameters and material properties. Predict bead dimensions, surface roughness, dilution, thermal profiles, and porosity defects.
Capture effects of wire fed deposition to analyze bead formation, geometry, and fusion to predict effective print parameters. Use flexible definitions to model multi-wire feeds as well as off-axis or coaxial laser orientations.
Use a custom heat source definition to capture subsurface heating from electron penetration. Additionally, capture heat transfer effects from melting in a vacuum with variable boundary conditions and phase change models dependent on local saturation.
Simulate effects of PSD on packing density and subsequent binder penetration as it relates to velocity, frequency, angle, and diameter. Predict percolation and evaporation effects on part density.
Model hot end extrusion and polymer flow through the nozzle with non-newtonian and viscoelastic fluid definitions. Predict the influence of process parameters and material properties on bead geometry and flowability.
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