Distortion prediction method for large-scale additive metal components based on feature partitioning and temperature function method

Laser deposition manufacturing (LDM) technology provides the potential to manufacture large, difficult-to-process metal components for aerospace and other applications. However, the residual stresses resulting from the considerable temperature gradients in the LDM process can cause distortion and even cracking of the fabricated components. Quickly predicting the distortion of large additive metal components is critical to achieving distortion control and high-quality forming of large components. Based on the principle of LDM technology, this paper proposes a partitioning method based on typical geometric features for aerospace titanium alloy frames, beams, and wall plates. It establishes a rapid prediction method for distortion of large additive metal components based on feature partitioning and temperature function method (TFM) by considering the effect of critical parameters of temperature function on distortion prediction. The results show that the prediction of additive component distortion by this method agrees with the traditional method and experimental results. Furthermore, the computational efficiency of the method has improved by 96% compared to the traditional approach, meeting the need for rapid distortion prediction in large metal additive components.