中国有色金属学报(英文版)
Transactions of Nonferrous Metals Society of China
| Vol. 24 No. 6 June 2014 |
（1. State Key Laboratory of Solidification Processing, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an 710072, China;
2. School of Mechatronics Engineering, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an 710072, China）
Abstract:In order to study the successive deposition and solidification processes of uniform alloy droplets during the drop-on-demand three dimensional (3D) printing method, based on the volume of fluid (VOF) method, a 3D numerical model was employed. In this model, the 7075 alloy with larger temperature range for phase change was used. The simulation results show that the successive deposition and solidification processes of uniform 7075 alloy droplets can be well characterized by this model. Simulated droplets shapes agree well with SEM images under the same condition. The effects of deposition and solidification of droplets result in vertical and L-shaped ridges on the surface of droplets, and tips of dendrites appear near the overlap of droplets due to rapid solidification.
Key words: 7075 Al alloy; uniform droplets; 3D model; 3D printing technology; surface morphology
