Numerical Solutions for the Simulation of Heat-Induced Stress in Thin Film Materials

Abstract

Additive manufacturing and laser based fabrication techniques have become popular due to several reasons and utilize many thin film materials. These materials are subjected to intense localized heating during deposition, or processing, and understanding and predicting the thermal stresses and deformations that result from these various processes is a critical effort towards ensuring quality of the product and its performance. This article investigates leading edge numerical simulation methods for prediction of heat induced stress in thin films for the applications of laser cladding, droplet based manufacturing and other related technologies. Since thermal gradients, material properties, and geometrical constraints are complexly linked in thin film systems, sophisticated computational methods are required to accurately capture the underlying physics. Researchers and engineers can make valuable use of state of the art numerical techniques to get insight into stress evolution, deformation mechanisms and potential failure modes without the need for extensive and expensive experimental trials.