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3D printing of sand cores enables the design of complex casted parts and an easier prototyping approach. However, the 3D printed materials behave differently from the traditional, core-blown sand core materials. In particular, the layer-by-layer printing process may introduce some anisotropy in the macroscopic thermal, mechanical and flow properties. These macroscopic properties directly influence the surface quality of the molded part, as well as its mechanical properties. Hence, it is of interest to understand how the printing parameters influence the behavior of the sand core. In this contribution, we focus on the link between the microstructure of the 3D printed material and its macroscopic properties. More specifically, we present a microstructure generation approach that aims to reproduce the 3D printing process. Such an approach relies on an approximation of the sand grains by clusters of overlapping spheres, on a directional contraction method that reproduces the layer-by-layer deposition process, and on a grid-free addition of binder between the grains. We compute macroscopic properties based using a FFT based homogenization solver [1]. We compare the computational results to experimental results and conclude on the relevance of the proposed microstructure generation method.
[1] H. Moulinec and P. Suquet, “A fast numerical method for computing the linear and nonlinear mechanical properties of composites,” Comptes Rendus de l’Académie des Sciences, Série II, Mécanique, Physique, Chimie, Sciences de l’Univers, Sciences de la Terre, vol. 318, no. 11, pp. 1417–1423, 1994"
