A Unified Multi-physics Framework for the Integrated Modeling of Spray Dynamics and Deposit Evolution in Metal Alloy Spray Forming

  • Mostafazade Abolmaali, Ali (Technical University of Denmark)
  • Hattel, Jesper (Technical University of Denmark)

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Spray forming of metal alloys offers substantial benefits over conventional casting by producing materials with refined microstructures and enhanced properties [1]. It is an advanced manufacturing technique that integrates metal atomization and deposition to produce high-quality alloys and powders. This technique is re-establishing itself as a sustainable and holistic recycling technology by producing feedstocks for both subtractive and additive manufacturing. To achieve the required properties in both bulk metals and produced powders, and thus fully exploit the technology’s potential, the process parameters must be further optimized. This includes refining the sophisticated fluid flow, heat transfer, atomization, solidification, and deposition processes. Many researchers have utilized mathematical modeling and numerical simulation to improve the fundamental understanding of different aspects of the spray forming process. These models are mainly developed to derive suitable processing conditions and to conduct sensitivity analyses. Due to the multi-scale and multi-physics nature of the spray forming, numerical studies typically focus on specific aspects of the process, such as the dynamics of in-flight droplets [2], their thermal evolution and solidification [3], the behavior of supersonic gas flow [4], and the shape and thermal evolution of the deposit [5,6]. However, there is a clear lack of a unified model encompassing all stages, from atomization to deposition. Consequently, the present study develops an integrated numerical framework for the spray forming of metal alloys using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). Utilizing the User-Defined Function (UDF) capability of ANSYS Fluent, different physical phenomena are programmed into the solver. By combining an Eulerian-Lagrangian approach with advanced mesh motion techniques, the developed model can dynamically predict the shape and thermal evolution of the deposit for any arbitrary nozzle configuration.