Advances and Challenges in Predictive Modeling for Additive Manufacturing of Dissimilar Metals and Complex Alloys

We present a scrutiny on the state of the art and applicability of predictive methods for additive manufacturing (AM) of metals, alloys, and compositionally complex metallic materials, to provide insights from the computational models for AM process optimization. Our work emphasizes the importance of manufacturing parameters on the thermal profiles evinced during processing, and the fundamental insights offered by the models used to simulate metal AM mechanisms. We discuss the methods and assumptions necessary for an educated tradeoff between the efficacy and accuracy of the computational approaches that incorporate multi-physics required to mimic the associated fluid flow phenomena as well as the resulting microstructures. Finally, the current challenges in the existing approaches are summarized and future scopes identified.