Stress Relief Heat Treatments simulation perfomed using Truchas

In recent years, additive manufacturing has been increasingly spreading, making it faster and cheaper to produce components with complex geometries. This technique is widely used in the aerospace industry, where there is a need to manufacture components optimized for specific functional requirements. The main techniques used for the production of metallic components are Selective Laser Melting (SLM) and Electron Beam Melting (EBM), which are described in the second chapter of this thesis. After printing, the component must undergo a heat treatment process to remove residual stresses and prevent crack formation. This process, known as stress relief, takes place inside a vacuum furnace, where the component is heated only through radiation. In general, simulations of radiation heat treatments face challenges due to the high computational cost of calculating the view factor, which depends on the geometry and orientation of the component with respect to the heat source. The aim of this thesis is to perform thermodynamic simulations of the stress relief process for a component of the GE Catalyst engine called PGB. The software Truchas has been used to perform these simulations, which simplifies the calculation of the view factor using the Hemicube method, as described in the fourth chapter. The ultimate goal of this thesis is to compare and analyze the temperature values measured during the heat treatment with those obtained from simulations using the Truchas software.