Additive Manufacturing (AM) is a layer-by-layer fabrication technology poised to bring about a revolution in the way products are designed, manufactured, and integrated. In the present tutorial, the Inherent Strain (IS) method as the most viable and efficient numerical approach is introduced to simulate the metal AM process. Although the IS method has been added in many commercial software packages such as the Abaqus AM Modeler plug-in, their underlying algorithms have not been explicitly elucidated.

This tutorial attempts to provide comprehensive training in finite element-based modeling of the Laser Powder Bed Fusion (LPBF) process using the IS approach to predict the residual stresses and distortion of the macro-scale component in a fast and effective way. The package is included in two separate parts associated with the micro-scale and macro-scale modeling, respectively. Each part consists of two workshops as case studies to demonstrate the viability of the IS method for various geometries. The workshops in the first part are modeling of a single path and multi-path layers to compute the IS values and the second part includes the simulation of a rectangular wall and a double-cantilever beam to predict the residual stresses and distortion.