Thermal and Fluid Flow Modelling

of a Heating Bed for Application in Metal

AM Process

Gourav K. Sharma , Piyush Pant , Prashant K. Jain ,

Pavan Kumar Kankar , and Puneet Tandon

1 Introduction

Heating bed has variety of applications in manufacturing space. The purpose of

providing a heating bed is to uniformly and evenly control the heating of the surface
and at the same time removes the excess of heat. In the presented heating bed, the
substrate is heated using conduction heating from heating bed. The substrate is kept
in close contact with top surface of the bed. The heating bed consists of resistance
coils in a serpentine pattern and cooling unit. A zigzag pattern duct with coolant flow
takes away the excess heat from the bed [1]. The cooling unit provided in heating
bed prevents the heat to be transported to the part of the axis, which would suffer
distortion otherwise.
A crucial application of heating bed is seen in additive manufacturing for keeping
the substrate at high temperature, which allows smaller thermal gradients during the
deposition. In additive manufacturing, layer-by-layer stacking of material is done in
a defined fashion to produce a part [2–4]. The temperature and temperature gradients
involved during the deposition decides the final behaviour of the fabricated compo-
nent. Fang et al. [5] performed the heat transfer analysis on fused coated additive
manufacturing of tin alloy, they demonstrated the key role of substrate heating on
printing uniformity and surface morphology of metal lines. The stable heating of
heat bed could be an alternate to the warping problem commonly encountered in 3D
printing [6]. In additive manufacturing technologies which utilise a focused energy
source like laser and electron beam, excessive local heat input causes thermal stresses
and distortion of the part [7, 8]. A preheated substrate significantly reduces the part

G. K. Sharma · P. Pant · P. K. Jain (B) · P. Tandon

Mechanical Engineering Discipline, PDPM Indian Institute of Information Technology, Design
and Manufacturing, Jabalpur, India
e-mail: [email protected]
P. K. Kankar
Mechanical Engineering Department, Indian Institute of Technology, Indore, India

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 841
A. Kumar et al. (eds.), Recent Advances in Mechanical Engineering, Lecture Notes
in Mechanical Engineering, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-9678-0_70
842 G. K. Sharma et al.

distortion and eliminates crack formation across deposited material [9, 10]. Residual
stresses control during weld deposition was demonstrated by controlling temperature
by implementing a heat sink [11]. Bulk substrate heating to reduce the part distortion
was suggested in research [12, 13].
From the above-reviewed literatures, heating of substrate is an important factor for
sound deposition. Consequently, it has received a lot of attention over the years. To
mitigate the above issues of heating the substrate, a heating bed design is simulated
for heat analysis to uniformly heat the substrate in contact with the heating bed. The
presented study performs a heat and fluid transport analysis of heating bed with one
inlet and one outlet cooling domain.

2 Numerical Model

2.1 Heating Bed Description

The heat bed platform’s dimensions are 200 mm × 200 mm × 12 mm. The heat bed
surface plate is of cast iron of dimensions 200 mm × 200 mm. The three-dimensional
geometry model in Fig. 1 consists of subdomains: a heating bed, a heating coil, a
base plate, fluid region, and an interface between the fluid and the heating coil. The
heating bed surface is of cast iron material, interface plate and base plate are of
aluminium material (Al 6061), and the fluid region is a serpentine water flowing slot,
while the heating coil is a type of tubular heater stainless steel shielded and 8 mm
diameter. For bed base, aluminium material was selected specifically for its inherent
thermal properties and lightweight. The material properties input to the simulation
are shown in Table 1. Since the purpose of a heated platform is to transfer energy to
the printed part to raise the parts’ temperature, efficient energy transfer is imperative
[14].

Fig. 1 CAD model of the heating bed for AM application

Thermal and Fluid Flow Modelling of a Heating Bed … 843

Table 1 Thermo-physical
Property Material Material (cast
properties of materials used
(aluminum-Al iron-ASTM 40)
for numerical simulation [15]
6061)
Density (kg/m3 ) 2700 7100
Thermal conductivity 167 46
(W/m K)
Specific heat capacity 896 490
(kJ/kg K)

2.2 Model Analysis and Assumptions

Thermal and fluid flow analysis is performed using ANSYS Workbench module and
the temperature distribution on the heating bed is obtained. The heating bed assembly
with cooling configuration having one inlet and one outlet is considered and shown
in Fig. 2. The configuration is solved for two parametric variations of inlet water
flow velocity based on the pump flow rate. The computational domain is discretized
into 895,145 tetrahedral cells, fair enough to grasp the grid independence solution.
A typical computational domain and model mesh is presented in Fig. 3. The study
considers following assumptions:
• The flow is steady and turbulent.
• The considered fluid is water and incompressible.
• Heating coils were given a constant temperature.
• Radiative heat transfer is considered from coil surface with a constant emissivity
of 0.6.

Fig. 2 Water domain with

one inlet one outlet
configuration of cooling
channels
844 G. K. Sharma et al.

Fig. 3 3D computational domain along with mesh used for simulation

2.3 Governing Equations and Boundary Conditions

In the computational domain, the continuity, momentum and energy equations are
solved for calculation of pressure, velocity and temperature. Additionally, the popular
Reynolds Average Navier–Stokes (RANS)-based standard k–ε turbulence model is
implemented for fluidic transport, due to the high Reynold’s number (Re ~ 8500)
pertaining to the physical condition of problem. Notably, k and ε are the turbulent
kinetic energy and dissipation rate of kinetic energy respectively. The k and ε equa-
tions were solved to obtain turbulent viscosity. Details of the turbulence equations
are not discussed here for the purpose of brevity and can be referred from literature
[16, 17]. Surroundings of heating bed are exposed to convective ambience. The fluid
flow is given as velocity boundary condition at inlet and pressure outlet is consid-
ered at the flow outlet. Velocity inlet condition is decided based on the flow rate and
pumping capacity from water pump. The heating coils are subjected to a fixed bed
temperature based on the temperature required during deposition and is governed by
controlled electrical input power to coil. The generalised form of governing equation
is given in the below form [17, 18].

∂
(ρ∅) + div(ρU ∅) = div(Γ∅ grad∅) + S∅ (1)
∂t

where ∅ can take the form of u, v and w velocity, temperature field, T and turbulence
moderator’s k and ε. ρ is the density and Γ∅ is the diffusion coefficient. Since the
Thermal and Fluid Flow Modelling of a Heating Bed … 845

Table 2 Imposed boundary

Water inlet velocity, V 0.75 m/s, 1.5 m/s
and initial conditions
Heater temperature 500 °C
Water inlet temperature 25 °C
Local heat convection coefficient 20 W/m2 K

problem is a time independent, the first term on left-hand side of Eq. 1 is negotiated.
The boundary conditions were imposed to the model and their numerical values are
represented in Table 2.

3 Results and Discussion

However, the proposed heating bed simultaneously serves the two purposes. Firstly,
heating the deposition substrate kept atop of heating bed apex surface and secondly,
cooling the heating bed base which resists the heat transfer to the bed movement
unit. So, a particular interest of this study is to observe the temperature distribution
at the apex, bottom and at the sidewalls of the heating bed assembly.

3.1 Temperature Distribution at Apex

The thermal field lines are visualised after solving the necessary transport equa-
tions to study the heat distribution in the heating bed. The heat distribution provides
the insight for uniformity of temperature in heated surface. Figure 4a, c shows the
temperature at the plane located at the apex of the heating bed. In Fig. 4a, which
represents the temperature distribution for water flow velocity 1.5 m/s, the tempera-
ture of apex surface varies from 120 to 476 °C. With the flow velocity of 0.75 m/s,
the temperature variation is between 162 and 481 °C. To observe a region of heating
uniformity, both the above conditions identify a printing region of almost equal
area, having isothermal temperature, hence suitable for deposition. This tempera-
ture uniformity sustains metal printing and can induce smaller thermal gradients
resulting in smoother clad deposition without warp in single track clad. Also, this
will prohibit the introduction of residual stresses, imparted majorly due the larger
temperature difference between the molten metal and substrate.

3.2 Temperature Distribution at Bottom

Figure 4 also shows the temperature at the plane located at the bottom of the heating
bed. In Fig. 4b, which represents the temperature distribution for water inflow velocity
846 G. K. Sharma et al.

(a) V= 1.5 m/s (b) V= 1.5 m/s

(c) V= 0.75 m/s (d) V= 0.75 m/s

Fig. 4 Temperature distribution (°C) in heating bed; for water inlet velocity, V = 1.5 m/s a Top
surface, b bottom surface, for water inlet velocity, V = 0.75 m/s, c top surface, d bottom surface

of 1.5 m/s, the thermal distribution is not uniform with the temperature ranging from
67 to 182 °C and the average surface temperature of 94 °C. With the water inlet
velocity of 0.75 m/s, the maximum temperature reaches to 235 °C, while the average
surface temperature is 154 °C (refer Fig. 4d). With the lower average temperature
of the bed bottom, condition following water inlet velocity of 1.5 m/s is found to be
more suitable for the presented design of heating bed. High temperature at the bottom
of the heating bed is likely to transfer the heat to the positioning and traversing unit
via conduction mode, thus causing deformation to the machine parts.

3.3 Temperature Distribution at Sidewalls and Water Domain

The heat dissipation of the heated bed should be constrained to the heating bed apex
surface. So, it is necessary to know the heat conducted to the sidewalls. Figure 5
shows the temperature at the two side’s namely left and right walls of the heating
bed. Figure 5a represents the temperature distribution for water inlet velocity, V
= 1.5 m/s, the temperature varies from 91.7 to 150.4 °C and 148.3 to 186 °C for
Thermal and Fluid Flow Modelling of a Heating Bed … 847

(a) V= 1.5 m/s (b) V= 0.75 m/s

Fig. 5 Temperature distribution on sidewalls of heating bed for a V = 1.5 m/s, b V = 0.75 m/s

left and right walls, respectively. With the second input condition (refer Fig. 5b),
the temperature variation is between 135.7 and 194.3 °C and 208.4 to 243.1 °C for
left and right walls, respectively. The significant difference of temperature in the
two walls is due to the water inflowing near the left wall and carrying the heat of the
system when exiting the near right wall. From Fig. 6a, b shows the heat carried by the
water for the two inflow conditions, from which it can be deduced that the turbulent
flow resulting from high velocity of water helps in maintaining low temperature of
the heating bed base. Thus from numerical observations, high inlet velocity condition
for one inlet one outlet heating bed could be a promising design parameter of heating
bed.
Based on the above simulation study, a heating bed is fabricated for applica-
tion in additive manufacturing process as shown in Fig. 7. The heating bed can be
uniformly heated to a manifested temperature as required, depending on the selection
of depositing material. The temperature of the bed can be controlled by a Proportional
Integral Derivative (PID) controller.

Fig. 6 Distribution of temperature (°C) in water domain of the heating bed for a V = 1.5 m/s, b V
= 0.75 m/s
848 G. K. Sharma et al.

Fig. 7 Fabricated heating

bed based for application in
AM process

4 Conclusion

In this study, a novel heating bed design is presented based on the thermal process
simulations. The simulation model solves the heat transfer and fluid flow equa-
tions using Ansys Fluent platform. The heat dissipation of bed and the effect on
the substrate were analysed by a CFD simulation, and the simulation results were
compared for two water inflow conditions. The conclusions of this article can be
directly applied under the same working conditions, and for different conditions, it
can be used as a reference. The following conclusions can be drawn from the results
of this study:
• Water inflow velocity of 1.5 m/s results in ideal heating of bed apex surface and
significantly cooling the bed bottom surface.
• The presented work could find its probabilistic application in the additive manu-
facturing, wherein substrate heating is required for isothermal deposition of every
layer, so as to ensure less residual stresses and reduced distortions in the final part.
Such, a heating bed is fabricated and demonstrated.
• Since the outlet temperature of water reaches around 90 °C, the provision of a
radiator would ensure the cooling of water and recirculate in the cooling unit of
heating bed.

Acknowledgements The author would like to thanks DST/TDT/AMT, India, for providing finan-
cial support. Present work has been carried out under the DST/TDT/AMT-sponsored project “Devel-
opment of induction conduction based material deposition system for metal additive manufacturing”
(DST/TDT/AMT/2017/119/G).
Thermal and Fluid Flow Modelling of a Heating Bed … 849

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