Journal of Materials Processing Technology 237 (2016) 409–419

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Journal of Materials Processing Technology

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jmatprotec

Finite-element analysis and experimental validation of thermal

residual stress and distortion in electron beam additive manufactured
Ti-6Al-4V build plates
Jun Cao a,∗ , Michael A. Gharghouri b , Philip Nash a
a
Thermal Processing Technology Centre, IIT, 10 W 32nd St., Chicago, IL 60616, USA
b
Neutron Scattering Branch, Canadian Nuclear Laboratories, 286 Plant Road, Chalk River, Ontario K0J 1J0, Canada

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: A 3D transient fully coupled thermomechanical model was built to study the distortion and residual stress
Received 28 November 2015 in electron beam additive manufactured Ti-6Al-4V build plates. Single layer, 6-layer and 11-layer build
Received in revised form 9 June 2016 plates were investigated using both simulation and experiments to ensure the accuracy of the model and
Accepted 22 June 2016
provide confidence in using simulations for process optimization. The model was validated by comparing
Available online 23 June 2016
the predicted residual elastic strains against measured values obtained by neutron diffraction for the 11-
layer build plate. The longitudinal component of strain, parallel to the beam trace, is the most significant
Keywords:
component. A double-peak tensile strain distribution was found in the cross-section of the substrate. The
Additive manufacture
Ti-6Al-4V
plate distortion was also measured for comparison with the model simulations. The simulated distortion
Finite element analysis and residual strains are in good agreement with the experimental results. The effect of preheat on the
Distortion distortion and the residual stress distribution was then studied using the validated model. The modeling
Residual stress results show that preheating at least twice is an effective way to reduce both distortion and residual
Preheating stresses.
Crown Copyright © 2016 Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Additive manufacturing (AM), in which net or near net-
shape components are built up in successive layers, has become
an increasingly important manufacturing technology (Guo and
Leu, 2013). Compared to conventional subtractive manufacturing,
AM can dramatically increase the material usage efficiency and
decrease the manufacturing cost while providing comparable prop-
erties. It is particularly appealing for titanium components that
are currently machined from wrought material and have a very
low buy-to-fly ratio, defined as the ratio of the mass of material
required to fabricate a part to the mass of material in the finished
part (Edwards et al., 2013). Although AM for metal parts is dom-
inated by laser-based systems, electron beam AM offers potential
advantages, including higher energy efficiency, faster build rates
and larger parts (Taminger and Hafley, 2003). As a result, elec-
tron beam additive manufacturing is receiving more attention as
a very promising technology, especially for the fabrication of large
aerospace parts.
∗ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: Jcao16@hawk.iit.edu (J. Cao).
The distortion and residual stresses resulting from rapid heat-
ing and cooling cycles during the AM are not well understood
yet. These are important issues, as they not only severely degrade
the dimensional accuracy and mechanical performance of compo-
nents, but also increase the manufacturing cost due to the necessity
for subsequent machining to achieve dimensional accuracy and
heat treatment to relieve residual stress. It is therefore important
to understand and control distortion and residual stress to opti-
mize the AM process. Many methods have been used to mitigate
distortion and residual stress in components fabricated by simi-
lar processes (e.g. welding), including applying appropriate design
methods, presetting/offsetting, applying mechanical restraint, pre-
heating, limiting the heat input, tightly controlling the process
parameters, performing sequential welding, using post-processing
heat treatment, and applying mechanical stress relief techniques
(Weman, 2011). Although the thermal-mechanical processes dur-
ing AM are very similar to those in multi-pass welding, the former is
more complicated due to the more complex build geometry which
results in complicated behavior when a large cladding is deposited.
Electron beam additive manufacturing processes, which are char-
acterized by high-energy input and low heat loss, are particularly
challenging to control and optimize.
Finite element analysis plays a significant role in the study
of thermal-mechanical behavior during AM. The rationale for

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jmatprotec.2016.06.032
0924-0136/Crown Copyright © 2016 Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
410 J. Cao et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 237 (2016) 409–419
performing finite element modeling of additive manufacturing pro-
cesses is to reduce the experimentation needed to optimize process
parameters. In addition, such models can reveal the transient ther-
mal and deformation history during processing, from which the
evolution of microstructure and residual stress can be understood.
For example, Vasinonta et al. (2007) developed a process map for
laser deposited AISI 304 stainless steel using finite element anal-
ysis, which predicts the residual stress and the dimensions of the
molten pool in terms of process variables.
The finite element analysis of welding has been an active area
of research for more than four decades, which is a very good basis
for AM considering a number of similarities between these pro-
cesses (Lindgren, 2006). In AM, several models have been built to
study the stress fields induced by thermal gradients and significant
progress has been made on predicting and controlling distortion
and residual stresses. Nickel et al. (2001) built a finite element
model to investigate the effects of deposition pattern on deforma-
tion and residual stresses of laser deposited 1117 steel. However,
their model is facile: latent heat is not considered; the entire layer
of the cladding is heated and then cooled instead of applying a mov-
ing heat source; the process of adding material step by step is not
included. Alimardani et al. (2007) presented a 3D transient numer-
ical approach to model the fabrication of a four-layer thin wall of
AISI 304 L stainless steel. It was found that preheating and effective
clamping could decrease the thermal stresses near the deposition
area. However, the simulated residual stress was not validated in
their work. Chew et al. (2015) developed a 3D finite element model
for laser deposited single and multiple clad beads and validated the
simulated residual stress using X-ray diffraction in addition to the
temperature profile. The XRD results compare reasonably well with
the simulated results but measurements were only made at the
center of the cladding and 1 mm away in the transverse direction.
Limited modeling work is available on electron beam AM. Denlinger
et al. (2014) built a model for electron beam AM using the code
CUBIC by Pan Computing LLC, and proposed values for the energy
efficiency and emissivity for a wire-feed electron beam AM system.
The temperature profile, in-situ distortion and residual stresses at
the bottom surface of the substrate were measured to evaluate the
accuracy of the model. A method of accounting for stress relaxation
by resetting both stress and plastic strain to zero when the temper-
ature exceeds a prescribed stress relaxation temperature (690 ◦ C
in this study) was adopted in the model in order to achieve good
agreement with the experimental measurements. Experimental
validation of the coupled thermal-mechanical models discussed
above has been based on measurements of temperature, distor-
tion and surface residual stress. However, the accuracy of simulated
bulk residual stress distributions in AM components has rarely been
validated. Ding et al. (2011) verified the bulk residual stress distri-
bution simulated by a high efficiency finite element model using
neutron diffraction measurements for small samples with up to 3
layers. Even though there is very good agreement between the sim-
ulated and measured temperature profile and final distortion, it was
found that the simulation dramatically underestimated the residual
stresses for the single layer sample, while the residual stresses from
the 2- and 3- layer simulations agreed well with the experimental
measurements.
In the present work, a 3D fully coupled temperature-
displacement finite element model has been built to simulate the
thermal-mechanical behavior in electron beam additive manufac-
tured Ti-6Al-4V components. Single layer, 6-layer and 11-layer,
single pass Ti-6Al-4V claddings deposited on Ti-6Al-4V substrates
were modeled and the results of the simulation, especially the
residual elastic strain distribution, were validated experimentally
to provide confidence in using simulations for process optimiza-
tion. The accumulated distortion for all three build plates was
measured using a coordinate measurement machine. In addition,
the bulk residual elastic strain distribution in the 11-layer build
plate was determined using spatially resolved neutron diffraction
measurements while the residual stress on the bottom surface of
the 6-layer build plate was characterized using a hole-drilling tech-
nique. It is important to measure the distortion and residual elastic
strain in the substrate as the substrate is a part of the overall struc-
ture and excessive distortion will lead to the necessity of machining
a complex part. The validated model was then used to investigate
the effects of preheating on the distortion and the residual stress.
Different preheat conditions and subsequent cooling times were
tested to identify an optimum preheat method.
2. Experimental description
2.1. Deposition process
Ti-6Al-4V deposits were made on a Ti-6Al-4V substrate using a
3.14 mm diameter wire feed electron beam AM system at Sciaky,
Inc, Chicago, USA. Single layer, 6-layer and 11-layer claddings were
deposited longitudinally along the centerline of the substrate as
shown in Fig. 1. The substrates were 300 ± 5 mm long, 100 ± 2 mm
wide and 14 ± 0.5 mm thick. The cladding layers were approxi-
mately 250 mm long, 12 mm wide and 3.6 mm, 19 mm, and 33 mm
thick for the 1, 6 and 11-layer samples, respectively. The substrates
were clamped along the entire length of the two long edges; the
trace of the clamp is clearly visible in Fig. 1(c). The coordinate
system used to describe the build plates is shown in Fig. 1(c), in
which the X, Y, and Z axes correspond to the longitudinal, trans-
verse, and normal plate directions, respectively. The middle point
on the bottom-left end of the substrate, which is also close to the
start of the deposition, is set as the origin. This coordinate system
is used throughout this report.
At the beginning of the AM process, prior to depositing the
cladding, the substrate was preheated and cleaned by scanning the
electron beam back and forth using the spiral scan pattern shown
in Fig. 2. For this step, the electron beam was operated at half of
the deposition power. After the preheating step, the electron beam
was repeatedly moved from one end to the other with the Ti-6Al-
4V wire feed ahead of the electron beam and tilted 45◦ from the
direction of the electron beam, which was parallel to the normal
direction of the plate. For each layer, the acceleration and decelera-
tion process at the beginning and end of the deposition lasted about
one second. The process parameters for the 11-layer build plate are
provided in Table 1. The process parameters were the same for the
single layer, 6-layer, and 11-layer build plates.
2.2. Distortion measurement
The distortion was measured using a coordinate measurement
machine (Mitutoyo® , BH-303). The coordinates of points on the top
surface of the substrate on either side of the cladding were captured
(6 longitudinal traces of 10 points each), and the distortion maps
were fitted and plotted using Matlab® .
2.3. Hole drilling measurements
The residual stress in the 6-layer build plate was measured in
the substrate using the hole-drilling method following ASTM E837.
The increment for the drilling depth was 0.0508 mm for the first
0.254 mm, and 0.127 mm for the next 2.032 mm. Measurements
were made at five locations along the centerline of the bottom
surface as shown in Fig. 3. The equivalent uniform stress method
(ASTM E837) was used to determine the stress from the simulation
result.
 J. Cao et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 237 (2016) 409–419 411

Fig. 1. Electron beam additive manufactured Ti-6Al-4V build plates. (a) Single layer, single pass; (b) 6-layer, single pass; (c) 11-layer, single pass.

Table 1
Process parameters for the electron beam additive manufacturing process.

Voltage (kV) Current (mA) Velocity (mm/s) Beam Diameter (mm) Feed Rate (mm/s) Wire Diameter (mm)

40 240 12.7 12.7 53.9 3.14

the NRU reactor, Canadian Nuclear Laboratories, Canada. Neutrons

Fig. 2. Electron beam scan path used to preheat the substrate. The path shown as a
dashed line was simplified in the model.
easily penetrate through many engineering materials, allowing
spatially resolved measurements that can be used to map the resid-
ual stress distribution in the bulk of a component. The technique
allows the complex stress state in welded components to be char-
acterized (Thibault et al., 2010), which can then be used to validate
numerical predictions of the residual stress distribution (Kim et al.,
2009). Neutron diffraction yields normal residual elastic strains in
specific sample directions, from which the corresponding stresses
can be calculated using appropriate elastic constants. The calcu-
lation of stresses from strains relies on assumptions regarding
the neutron diffraction elastic constants. These potentially signif-
icant sources of uncertainty are avoided in the present work by
comparing the natural output from the neutron diffraction mea-
surements (the strains) with the corresponding values from the
model, since the role of the neutron diffraction data is to validate
the model rather than to determine the stresses directly. The typ-
ical uncertainty for lattice strains obtained by neutron diffraction
is ±100–150 ␮␧. Fig. 4 shows the 11-layer build plate mounted on
the L3 diffractometer. The (115) reflection of a germanium mosaic
single crystal was used to obtain neutrons with a nominal wave-
length of 0.1587 nm. The (201) hcp titanium diffraction peak was
used since these pyramidal planes tend not to accumulate large
intergranular strains (ISO/TS 21432:2005).
Neutrons are diffracted by the lattice planes of the crystallites
that make up the material. The lattice strain is given by:

sin0
ε= −1 (1)
Fig. 3. Schematic showing strain rosette locations on the bottom surface of the 6-
sin
layer build plate. The dashed rectangle represents the cladding on the top surface
of the substrate.
where 2 and 2 0 are the measured scattering angles for the sample
under study, and for a stress-free reference sample, respectively.
Ideally the reference sample should be uniformly stress-free (Type
2.4. Neutron diffraction measurements I, II and III stresses) and should not introduce experimental artifacts
that can lead to an apparent strain. A detailed account of the mea-
Neutron diffraction measurements were performed on the L3 surement of elastic strains by neutron diffraction can be found in
diffractometer of the Canadian Neutron Beam Center, located in Hutchings et al. (2005).
412 J. Cao et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 237 (2016) 409–419
Fig. 4. 11-layer build plate mounted on the L3 diffractometer of the Canadian Neutron Beam Centre (transverse strain component).
Fig. 5. Measurement locations. All dimensions are in mm.
Fig. 6. Orientations of the build plate for neutron diffraction measurement of the
three lattice strain components.
Each measurement consists of neutron counts versus scatter-
ing angle as measured on a 32-channel detector centered at the
nominal scattering angle for the desired reflection. Each diffraction
peak is then fitted to a Gaussian profile superposed on a con-
stant background using a least-squares algorithm to yield three
parameters: integrated intensity, peak position, and full-width at
half-maximum. The uncertainty in all the parameters can be traced
back to the quality of fit parameter, 2 , which is the parameter min-
imized by the fitting process. In this work, the uncertainty in the
strain values is obtained from the uncertainty in the peak position
parameter.
Measurements were performed at a series of locations along a
transverse line about 4 mm below the top surface of the substrate,
as shown in Fig. 5. At each location, lattice strain was measured
parallel to the longitudinal, transverse, and normal directions. The
build plate orientation and fixed beam directions for each strain
component are shown in Fig. 6. To balance the spatial resolution and
acquisition time, a 2 mm × 2 mm × 20 mm sampling volume was
used for the transverse and normal strain components. As shown in
Fig. 6, the long dimension was parallel to the longitudinal direction,
along which the stress gradient is assumed negligible. A smaller
2 mm × 2 mm × 3 mm sampling volume was used for the longitudi-
nal strain component to ensure a suitable spatial resolution parallel
to the plate normal direction. For all of the measurements, the sam-
pling volume was centered at a position approximately 1/3 of the
length of the cladding from the start of the deposition.
For the stress-free measurements of the plane spacing, a block
was extracted from a plate, annealed at 550 ◦ C for 4 h and slowly
furnace-cooled. The values of d0 were obtained parallel to the three
plate directions (longitudinal, transverse, normal).
2.5. Model description
The thermal-mechanical analysis was performed using a
3D transient fully coupled temperature-displacement model in
ABAQUS® . The governing equation can be written as:
    
Kuu Ku u Ru
= (2)
Ku K  R
where u and  are the respective corrections to the incremental
displacement and temperature, the Kij is the submatrices of the
fully coupled Jacobian Matrix, and Ru and R are the mechanical
and thermal residual vectors, respectively.
The temperature-dependent material properties of Ti-6Al-4V
used for both the substrate and the cladding in the analysis are
shown in Table 2 (Boyer et al., 1994). The mechanical proper-
ties of the cladding are assumed to be the same as those of the
substrate, which is a simplification since differences in properties
may result from the different microstructures in the substrate and
cladding. However, a more complex model that accounts for such
differences would be computationally expensive and, furthermore,
temperature-dependent properties for the various microstructures
are not available.
The FE analyses were run using the commercial software
ABAQUS® 6.13-1 using an Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3930K 3.2 GHz pro-
cessor and 16.0 GB memory. The finite element mesh used for the
11-layer build plate is shown in Fig. 7. The cladding geometry was
simplified as a cuboid and the acceleration and deceleration at the
beginning and end of the deposition were not modeled. An 8-node
trilinear displacement and temperature coupled, reduced integra-
tion brick (C3D8RT) was employed in this 3D continuous model. The
mesh in the substrate was refined near the cladding to ensure suf-
ficient spatial resolution in this area, where the thermal and stress
gradients are expected to be largest, without unduly increasing the
computational time. A convergence analysis regarding the mesh
type and the mesh size was performed prior to running the final
simulations. The selected element type and density ensured both
accurate results and computational efficiency.
The AM process was modeled as four steps:
1) Preheating/surface cleaning
2) Deposition
 J. Cao et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 237 (2016) 409–419 413

Table 2
Temperature-dependent material properties of Ti-6Al-4V.

Temperature Thermal Expansion Young’s Poisson’s Ratio Heat Capacity Thermal Density Yield Strength
(K) Coefficient (m/(m K)) Modulus (GPa) (J/(kg K)) Conductivity (kg/m3 ) (MPa)
(W/(m K))

293 9 × 10−6 102 0.345 546 7 4420 850

400 9.16 × 10−6 101 0.35 567 7.8 4402 720
500 9.31 × 10−6 95 0.355 591 8.9 4391 680
600 9.46 × 10−6 91 0.36 611 10.5 4376 630
700 9.61 × 10−6 85 0.365 636 11.7 4361 590
800 9.76 × 10−6 80 0.37 656 13 4345 540
900 9.90 × 10−6 75 0.375 679 14.5 4331 490
1000 1.01 × 10−5 70 0.385 699 16.2 4319 450
1100 1.02 × 10−5 65 0.395 719 18.4 4303 400
1200 1.04 × 10−5 60 0.405 733 20.1 4289 360
1300 1.05 × 10−5 35 0.43 647 19.7 4278 315
1400 1.06 × 10−5 20 0.43 664 21.7 4264 268
1950 1.10 × 10−5 10 0.43 790 72 4189 20

Fig. 7. 3D finite element mesh for the 11-layer build plate.

3) Cooling to room temperature
4) Clamp removal
The timeline for the simulation of the 11-layer build plate, which
accurately represents the process times used by Sciaky Inc. for this
build plate, is shown in Fig. 8. The total manufacturing time was
5832 s. Each interval denoted Ln (n = 1, 2. . . 11) in Fig. 8 represents
the deposition of the nth layer. Cooling times, CT-n, (n = 1, 2. . . 12),
in the range of 40–60 s (except for the final cooling after the last
layer was deposited), were applied after the preheating stage, and
after the deposition of each layer.
The “element birth technique” was used to simulate the build-
up of the cladding during deposition. In this technique, all elements
in both the substrate and cladding are generated prior to the start
of the analysis; the cladding elements are then deactivated and the
analysis is started. As the analysis proceeds, elements correspond-
ing to the cladding are added step by step following the moving
heat source during the deposition stage.
Various analyses were conducted to determine the appropriate
simulation conditions for the electron beam additive manufactur-
ing of Ti-6Al-4V. The shape of the molten pool and the maximum
distortion of the build plates were used to calibrate the model. For
example, simple point heat sources, a Gaussian heat distribution,
a double ellipsoidal heat source, and a uniform heat distribution
were used to represent the heat source for the deposition. The uni-
form distribution was adopted in the model since it resulted in the
best fit to the shape of the molten pool. The optimized simulation
conditions are discussed below.
2.5.1. Thermal analysis
The transient temperature distribution T(x,y,z,t) throughout the
domain can be obtained from the 3D heat conduction equation
along with appropriate boundary conditions. The governing heat
transfer energy balance is written as:
  
∂ ∂T ∂ ∂T ∂ ∂T ∂ Cp T
k + k + k +Q = (3)
∂x ∂x ∂y ∂y ∂z ∂z ∂t
where T is the temperature, k is the thermal conductivity, Cp is the
specific heat capacity,  is the density, t is the time, and Q is the
power generated per unit volume within the workpiece.
The electron beam heat source was modeled as a simple circu-
lar surface heat flux for the preheat process, and as a volumetric
heat source with a uniform distribution for the deposition process
because the electron beam is a small, high-density heat source. All
process parameters used were the same as for the real additive
manufacturing process, as shown in Table 1. The energy efficiency,
, was assigned a value of 0.9, based on previous experimental
and simulation work (Denlinger et al., 2014). The user subroutine
DFLUX in ABAQUS® was used to model the motion of the heat
source.
The thermal boundary conditions consisting of radiation were
applied to all free surfaces according to the Stefan-Boltzmann law:
qrad = ε Ts4 − T∞
4
(4)
where ε is the surface emissivity, is the Stefan-Boltzmann con-
stant, Ts is the surface temperature of the workpiece, and T∞ is the
ambient temperature (20 ◦ C). The value of the surface emissivity ε
was 0.2. It was not necessary to consider surface convection since
electron beam additive manufacturing takes place in vacuum.
The effect of latent heat on the temperature distribution was
modeled by directly defining the latent heat, solidus temperature,
and liquidus temperature as 360 kJ/kg, 1877 K, and 1933 K, respec-
tively. Marangoni flow, which is the effect of fluid motion due to the
thermo-capillary phenomenon, was considered since the electron
414 J. Cao et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 237 (2016) 409–419

Fig. 8. Timeline for simulation of the 11-layer build plate. Data provided by Sciaky Inc.

beam creates a large molten pool in which the fluid convection

significantly affects heat transfer. Marangoni flow was simulated
by artificially increasing the thermal conductivity by a factor of 3
based on the approach proposed by Lampa et al. (1997). In this work
the value was adjusted until the depth of the simulated molten
region of the substrate corresponded to the value obtained from
microstructural observation on a cross section of a build plate.

2.5.2. Mechanical analysis

During AM, materials expand or contract as temperature
changes; therefore thermal strain, which depends on current and
initial temperatures, is an important part of the total strain. The
total strain in the component, εTotal , can be represented as:

εTotal = εp + εe + εT (5)
Fig. 9. Distortion along the longitudinal centerline of the substrate.
where εTotal , εp , εe , εT are the total strain, plastic strain, elastic strain
and thermal strain, respectively. The constitutive equation can be
written as: neutron diffraction measurements of residual lattice strains to
e
validate an 11-layer simulation.
= Cε (6)
The simulated and measured final distortions along the lon-
where is the stress and C is the fourth-order material stiffness gitudinal centerline of the substrate are compared for the 1-, 6-,
tensor. To better illustrate the constitutive law, the equation can and 11-layer build plates in Fig. 9. The simulation results are in
be written in indicial notation as follow: good agreement with the measurements except near the plate
extremities, where the model predicts no distortion while the
E 
ij = vıij εkk + (1 − 2v)εjj − (1 + v)˛Tıij
(1 + v)(1 − 2v)
(i, j, k = 1, 2, 3)
where
is Poisson’s ratio, E is Young’s modulus and ıij is the Kro-
necker delta. The elastic behavior was modeled using the isotropic
generalized Hooke’s law. A perfectly plastic behavior, with no strain
hardening, was assumed. Hardening and annealing processes were
not modeled.
The imposed mechanical boundary conditions are very impor-
tant when modeling the distortion and residual stress in an electron
beam deposited component. As described previously, longitudinal
clamping bars were used on the edges of the substrate to prevent
rigid body motion during deposition. Different boundary conditions
were investigated to represent this clamping condition. The best
result was obtained by pinning the two longitudinal sides and the
entire bottom surface for the 11-layer build plate. A spring element
with a very low stiffness (1 N/m) was applied at the four vertices
of the bottom surface to prevent rigid body motion after clamp
removal.
3. Results
3.1. Experimental validation
Detailed information, including temperature, elastic
strain/stress, and plastic strain/stress as a function of time
and position can be obtained from transient finite element mod-
eling. However, rigorous validation is required to evaluate the
accuracy of the model. In this work we use spatially resolved
measurements show small distortions. Both the simulations and
the experimental results show that the distortion decreases with
(7) increasing number of layers.
The residual stresses in the 6-layer build plate were determined
using a hole-drilling method to validate the model regarding the
simulation of residual stresses. The longitudinal ␴xx , transverse ␴yy
and shear ␶xy components of stress were determined. The simu-
lated and experimentally determined longitudinal stress ␴xx and
transverse stress ␴yy components along the longitudinal center-
line at the bottom surface of the substrate are compared in Fig. 10.
The shear component of stress is close to zero within measurement
uncertainty. The simulations show that ␴xx is very low near the
edges of the substrate (␴xx is normal to a free surface at the edges
of the substrate), increases sharply at either end of the cladding,
and varies little over most of the length of the cladding. The peak
tensile stress occurs near the two ends of the cladding due to addi-
tional constraint imposed by the substrate in these regions. ␴yy is
strongly compressive at either edge of the substrate and increases
sharply at either end of the cladding. ␴yy is tensile over most of the
length of the cladding, the maximum tensile stress occurring near
either end of the cladding, and the minimum occurring at approx-
imately the mid-length of the cladding. The simulation results are
in agreement with the values obtained from hole-drilling within
uncertainty (the uncertainty in the stresses obtained from hole-
drilling can be ±50 MPa) (Withers and Bhadeshia, 2001). While it is
reassuring that the simulated and experimentally determined val-
ues of stress are in good agreement, five points are insufficient for
model validation because these cannot represent the stress distri-
bution on the bottom surface of the build plate. Although it is a quick
and easy way to measure residual stress, hole-drilling can only pro-
 J. Cao et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 237 (2016) 409–419
Fig. 10. Residual stress distribution, determined by hole-drilling, along the cen-
terline of the bottom surface in the 6-layer build plate: (a) longitudinal stress; (b)
transverse stress.
vide information at limited depth, such that the bulk residual stress
distribution in the plate cannot be examined.
Residual lattice strains in the 11-layer build plate were mea-
sured using neutron diffraction to further validate the model. The
Fig. 11. Comparison between simulated and measured residual strain within the substrate along a transverse line in the cross-section: (a) longitudinal strain; (b) transverse
strain; (c) normal strain.
415
lattice strains obtained by neutron diffraction are elastic strains,
which can therefore be compared with the corresponding elastic
strains obtained from the finite element model. The strains along a
transverse line located 4 mm below the top surface of the substrate
will be discussed here. The simulated and measured longitudi-
nal, normal, and transverse components of strain are compared in
Fig. 11. The longitudinal component of strain shows a double-peak
profile with a tensile minimum at the centerline and two tensile
maxima 4 mm away from the centerline. The lattice strain becomes
increasingly compressive further away from the heated region. The
simulated and measured peak strains are 1832 ␮␧ and 1773 ␮␧,
respectively. The normal and transverse components of strain are
both compressive below the cladding region, becoming tensile near
the edges of the substrate. The magnitudes of the normal and trans-
verse strains are relatively small. Considering the uncertainties in
the measured values of strain, the simulated strains are in very
good agreement with the measured strains – the correct profiles
are obtained, with very good accuracy. This agreement between
simulation and experiment provides confidence that the model
captures the essential characteristics of the deposition process very
well. In the following, model simulations are used to investigate
the effects of various process parameters on the resulting distor-
tion and residual stress distribution, with no further experimental
validation.
3.2. The influence of preheat on distortion and residual stress
In this section, the validated finite element model is used to
investigate the influence of preheat conditions on the resulting
distortion and residual stress distribution. The AM process in the
11-layer build plate was investigated for four different conditions:
(1) no preheat; (2) single preheat, in which the electron beam is
416 J. Cao et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 237 (2016) 409–419
Fig. 12. The final predicted distortion along the centerline of the bottom surface of
the 11-layer build plate under four different preheat conditions.
Fig. 13. Variation in longitudinal stress along the normal direction (the arrow in the
upper right inset) for the four different preheat conditions.
scanned once across the substrate; (3) double preheat, in which
the electron beam is scanned across the substrate twice; (4) triple
preheat, in which the electron beam is scanned across the substrate
three times. For each scan, the electron beam moves back and forth
following the scan path shown in Fig. 2 in 36.9 s.
The final distortion along the centerline of the bottom surface
of the substrate, after removal of the clamp, is shown in Fig. 12. The
graph shows that preheating once reduces the maximum distortion
by 3.5% compared with no preheat, while preheating twice and
three times reduces the distortion by 12% and 18%, respectively,
compared with no preheat.
The variations in the longitudinal component of residual stress
along the normal direction from the bottom of the substrate to
the top of the cladding for the four different preheat conditions
are shown in Fig. 13. The boundary between the substrate and
the cladding is indicated by a dashed line, and the symbols to
the right of this line correspond to the top surface of the corre-
sponding cladding layer. Since the stress distribution is expected
to vary little along the longitudinal direction, it is more interest-
ing to examine the distribution over the cross-section. The graph
shows that tensile stresses in the substrate and the first 8 lay-
ers of the cladding are balanced by compressive stresses in the
4 topmost layers of the cladding. For all preheat conditions, the
highest tensile stress occurs in the 1st deposited layer, while the
highest compressive stress occurs in the last deposited layer. This
tensile peak stress decreases with increasing number of preheat
passes, from ∼320 MPa for no preheat, to ∼280 MPa, ∼265 MPa,
Fig. 14. The final predicted distortion along the centerline of the substrate for the
1-, 3-, 6-, and 11-layer build plates.
and ∼245 MPa for one, two, and three preheat passes, respectively.
Corresponding changes are observed in the maximum compres-
sive stress that occurs in the topmost deposited later, which also
decreases with increasing number of preheat passes. These results
show that a large change in the peak tensile and compressive
stresses (∼40 MPa) in the cladding occurs with one preheat, but
that additional preheat passes do not affect the peak stresses as
strongly. The graph also shows that preheating strongly influences
the stress profile in the substrate. With no preheat, the longitudi-
nal component of residual stress increases monotonically from the
bottom to the top of the substrate. The nature of the stress profile
in the substrate changes, however, with preheating – an increas-
ingly pronounced minimum is observed as the number of preheat
passes is increased. Concurrently, the maximum tensile stress in
the substrate, which occurs at the top of the substrate, decreases.
Conversely, the stress at the bottom of the substrate is not strongly
affected by preheating.
The average temperature of the substrate after one preheat
pass, two preheat passes and three preheat passes is 471 ± 67 K,
612 ± 80 K, and 730 ± 84 K, respectively. The extra energy intro-
duced by preheating reduces the temperature gradients across
the build plate, thereby reducing the thermal expansion mismatch
between the substrate and the newly deposited cladding, which in
turn results in a decrease in the residual stress.
The influence of cooling time after each preheat on the distortion
and the residual stress was also studied. Cooling times of 1 s, 30 s,
60 s and 120 s were simulated. The simulations showed that the
cooling time has very little effect on both the distortion and the
residual stress.
4. Discussion
The distortions for the 6-layer and 11-layer build plates are
smaller than for the 1-layer build plate, with the 11-layer build
plate having the smallest distortion. Instead of accumulating dis-
tortion as more layers are added, additional deposited layers seem
to reduce the distortion. This result appears counter-intuitive, so a
3-layer build plate was simulated to obtain additional insight. The
result, as shown in Fig. 14, demonstrates that the distortion of the
3-layer build plate is larger than for the 1-layer build plate; thus
the distortion increases as the first few layers are added, but then
decreases as the number of layers increases beyond a threshold
number. A similar trend was observed by Denlinger et al. (2014)
who monitored the distortion in-situ and measured the final dis-
tortion of electron beam additive manufactured Ti-6Al-4V plate
 J. Cao et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 237 (2016) 409–419
Fig. 15. Temperature contour maps (Kelvin) for the middle cross-section of the 11-layer build plate at different times during the deposition: (a) t = 107 s; (b) t = 253 s; (c)
t = 442 s; (d) t = 822 s.
with one end clamped. They found that the distortion increased
rapidly during the deposition of the first two layers, then remained
constant for the following 14 layers. This result can be understood
based on the temperature gradient that develops within the com-
ponent during deposition. Fig. 15 shows the simulated temperature
contour maps for the middle cross-section of the build plate at times
t = 107 s, 253 s, 442 s, and 822 s during the deposition of the 11-layer
build plate. At these times (Fig. 15(a)–(d)) the electron beam was
positioned directly above the middle cross-section of the build plate
during deposition of the 1st, 3rd, 6th, and 11th layers, respectively.
With only one layer deposited (Fig. 15(a)), the temperature differ-
ence between the newly deposited cladding and the substrate is
very large, and only a small area in the substrate is heated. With 3
layers deposited (Fig. 15(b)), more energy flows from the deposited
cladding into the adjacent substrate, such that a large tempera-
ture gradient forms through the build plate. With the deposition
of additional layers (Fig. 15(c) and (d)), the overall temperature of
the substrate increases, and the temperature gradient through the
build plate decreases.
As a layer is deposited, the energy that flows into the system is
conducted through the material, and is either stored or lost to the
environment. For the first several layers, up to 3 layers in this case,
a large temperature gradient forms since more and more energy
flows from the deposited cladding into the adjacent substrate but
there is not enough time to conduct the heat so as to achieve a uni-
form temperature distribution in the substrate. As additional layers
are deposited, the distance between the newly deposited material
and the substrate increases, as does the accumulated manufactur-
ing time since the start of the deposition process, allowing the
average temperature of the build plate to increase (energy is input
more quickly than it is dissipated), and thus the temperature distri-
bution becomes more uniform. As a result, the distortion decreases
because the more uniform temperature distribution results in a
smaller thermal expansion mismatch. The substrate is initially at
room temperature, while the predicted peak temperature in the
molten pool varies from 2700 K to 3400 K. Generally, there are two
ways to increase the temperature of the substrate during additive
manufacturing in order to minimize the temperature difference.
One is to reduce the heat loss from the substrate; another is to
increase the heat input to the substrate. Nguyen et al. (2015) indi-
417
cated that putting thermal insulation on the bottom surface of the
substrate to reduce the heat loss would increase the average tem-
perature of the substrate and therefore decrease the final distortion.
Here it is demonstrated that the amount of preheat can also mit-
igate the final distortion. The temperature difference between the
newly deposited cladding and the substrate is the key factor influ-
encing the final distortion.
Analogous to welding, residual stress in additive manufactured
components primarily develops due to differences in the thermal
cycles experienced by the cladding and the heat-affected zone.
Localized heating and cooling lead to differential volumetric expan-
sion and contraction of metal around the cladding, accounting for
most of the residual stress. The magnitude, distribution and nature
of the stresses in the build plate change continuously during depo-
sition. Simulated longitudinal stress contour maps for the middle
cross-section of the 11-layer build plate at times t = 107 s, 155.8 s,
5830.8 s, and 5831.8 s (refer to timeline in Fig. 8), are shown in
Fig. 16. Fig. 16(a)–(d) correspond to the times at which the middle
cross-section was heated (during the deposition of the 1st layer),
temporarily cooled (between the end of the 1st layer and the start
of the 2nd layer), cooled to room temperature (clamp in place),
and after clamp removal, respectively. Only the longitudinal com-
ponent of stress is shown because it is the dominant component.
During heating, the temperature increases, causing the material to
expand at the same time as its yield strength decreases. However,
thermal expansion is restricted by the surrounding cooler material
and the clamp, which leads to compressive strain during heating
as shown in Fig. 16(a). During subsequent cooling, the cladding
and the heat-affected zone in the substrate undergo thermal con-
traction. Initially, resistance to the contraction is small due to the
low yield strength at high temperature. As cooling proceeds how-
ever, shrinkage of the cladding and heat affected zone is more and
more strongly resisted, resulting in tensile stress in the cladding and
heated affected zone, as shown in Fig. 16(b) and Fig. 11(a). Two lev-
els of constraint act to restrict shrinkage during cooling: the overall
constraint and the local constraint. The overall constraint is applied
by the clamps constraining the substrate, while the local constraint
is exerted by the cooler material surrounding the heated region. As
the build plate further cools to room temperature, a strong ten-
sile stress forms through the whole cross-section because of the
418 J. Cao et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 237 (2016) 409–419

Fig. 16. Longitudinal stress contour maps (Pa) for the middle cross-section of the 11-layer build plate at different times during the deposition: (a) t = 107 s; (b) t = 155.8 s; (c)
t = 5830.8 s; (d) t = 5831.8 s.

constraints imposed by the clamps, as shown in Fig. 16(c). When including scan path, energy input and travel speed, can be stud-
the clamps are removed, the build plate can distort freely, which ied in the future to determine an optimum preheat method for
results in the relaxation and redistribution of the longitudinal stress electron beam additive manufactured Ti-6Al-4V using this finite
in the middle cross-section as shown in Fig. 16(d). The build plate element model.
bends upward and a compressive stress develops at the top of the
cladding. Similar stress development was described in the mod-
5. Summary and conclusions
elling work of Ding et al. (2011) and further illustrated with an
analytical model using bending theory in the work of Colegrove
In this study, a 3D transient fully coupled temperature-
et al. (2013).
displacement finite element model was built, calibrated and
In addition to shrinkage caused by cooling, the allotropic ␣ to ␤
experimentally validated to investigate the thermal-mechanical
transformation that occurs in Titanium between 800 ◦ C and 1000 ◦ C
behavior of electron beam additive manufactured Ti-6Al-4V build
may also contribute to the development of residual stress. How-
plate. The validated model has been applied to investigate effects of
ever, this contribution is expected to be relatively small because
preheat on the distortion and the residual stress. The major findings
the yield strength of Ti-6Al-4V is low in this temperature range,
are as follows:
such that the stresses generated would be largely relieved by plas-
tic deformation. Thus, for electron beam additive manufactured
(1) Instead of accumulating distortion monotonically as more lay-
Ti-6Al-4V plate, the restriction of shrinkage is mainly responsible
ers are added, the distortion increases during deposition of
for residual stress, such that the geometry of the component has a
the first 2–3 layers, then decreases as additional layers are
major influence on the final stress distribution.
deposited.
Although the model has been carefully validated against experi-
(2) For the hole-drilling measurements in the 6-layer build plate,
mental data, care must be exercised in interpreting the results of the
only the in-plane stresses at or near the free surface could be
model and applying the model to further investigations. For exam-
obtained, which provided confidence in the model, but were
ple, the simulation results near the ends of the cladding will deviate
insufficient to fully validate it. Neutron diffraction was used to
from reality because, while the sharp edges in the model decrease
measure the elastic (lattice) strain along a transverse line in
the complexity of the mesh, they introduce artificial stress concen-
the cross-section of the substrate, 4 mm below the top surface.
trations. In addition, the simulated residual stresses and distortion
The simulated longitudinal, transverse and normal components
in the cladding may not be as accurate as in the substrate since the
of elastic strain all matched well with the experimental data.
effect of the microstructure has not been considered. Indeed, many
The distribution of the longitudinal elastic strain component
researchers have found that the cladding consists mainly of colum-
showed a double peak profile.
nar grains growing epitaxially from the substrate along the normal
(3) The validated finite element model was used to investigate the
direction.
influence of preheat conditions on the resulting distortion and
Preheating is a common method used to mitigate distortion and
residual stress distribution. The simulation results show that
residual stress in welded components. Much work has been done
preheating effectively mitigates the final distortion and the
to find optimal preheat methods. In this work, the use of the elec-
residual stress. For the conditions studied, the higher the num-
tron beam to scan the substrate prior to deposition to preheat the
ber of preheating passes, the lower the simulated distortion
component has been analyzed. Based on the validated finite ele-
and residual stress. However, the incremental improvement
ment model, it is found that performing at least two preheat scans
decreases with additional passes, such that it should be pos-
is an effective and efficient way to mitigate the distortion and the
sible to determine an optimal number of passes. The cooling
residual stress. The final preheat strategy should be based on the
time after each preheat scan shows no influence on the final
actual requirements for the final dimensional accuracy, mechanical
results, which indicates that the cooling time can be set as short
properties and manufacturing efficiency. Additional parameters,
as possible to reduce manufacturing time.
 J. Cao et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 237 (2016) 409–419
Acknowledgements
The authors wish to acknowledge Dr. David Bowden of Boeing
for facilitating and Sciaky Inc. for providing the build plates and
the Canadian Neutron Beam Center for the neutron beam time.
We are grateful to Dr. J. Santner of NIU for a critical reading of
the manuscript. The research was supported by Northern Illinois
University and the Thermal Processing Technology Center at IIT.
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