Residual stress in laser-based directed energy deposition of aluminum alloy 2024: simulation and validation

Simulations of laser-based directed energy deposition of metals have received increasing interest aimed at reducing the experimental effort to select the proper processing condition for the repair or overhaul of actual components. One of the main issues to be addressed is the evaluation of the residual stress, which may lead to part failure under nominal loading. In this frame and specifically relating to aluminum alloys, few works have been developed and validated. This lack of knowledge is addressed in this paper: namely, the proper approach to simulate the activation of the deposited metal is discussed in case of single deposition and is shifted to a case of multiple depositions over a substrate. The validation of the predicted residual stress is made by comparison with the actual stress resulting from X-ray diffraction.