Enhancing standard finite element codes with POD for reduced order thermal analysis: Application to electron beam melting of pure tungsten

This paper describes a numerical scheme that implements reduced order modeling of transient heat transfer problems by enhancing a standard finite element code, ABAQUS, and integrating it with proper orthogonal decomposition (POD). The capability of output and manipulation of matrices, the user subroutine for moving heat source and easy enforcement of boundary conditions, and the powerfulness of pre- and post-processing in the commercial software package are leveraged, resulting in a standard and accessible tool for POD analysis. The proposed strategy is validated through some benchmark heat transfer problems, and it is then applied to simulate the powder-bed electron-beam-melting (EBM) additive manufacturing (AM) process. The pure tungsten with the highest melting point in metals is chosen here as an example, and the first reference on EBM modeling of tungsten is provided, to the best knowledge of the authors. A substantial computation time saving, more than 70%, is achieved for the EBM modeling of single track scanning of a layer of tungsten powder put on a solid substrate. The proposed strategy is readily applicable to other heat transfer problems and AM process simulations, and has practical importance for the users either in industry or academia. [Display omitted] •An implementation of ROM of transient heat transfer problems by integrating a standard finite element code, ABAQUS, with POD is demonstrated.•The strategy is validated through benchmark problems.•The ROM is applied to electron beam melting modeling of pure tungsten, and substantial saving of computation time is achieved.