Modeling and Simulation Investigations on Microstructure Evolution during Additive Manufacturing of AlSi10Mg Alloy

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Accepted in present form

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Thank you very much for your highly appraised, and your approval is very important for our future work.

Thank you and best regards!

Sincerely,
Xuewei Yan

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript is on topic in the field of simulation on microstructure evolution during additive manufacturing of AlSi10Mg alloy. Experimental results are also presented. The research results are interesting and the manuscript is recommended for publication. However, several points should be clarified before publishing. 

1. The title of the manuscript does not correspond to the role of experimental work defined in lines 32-34, 119. The authors should decide on the role of experimental work, were new, previously unknown results obtained in the experiments? Or were the experiments only for model validations? If the former, then this should be reflected in the text of the manuscript. If the latter, then the title of the manuscript must be corrected.

 2. Line 104. Abbreviation "PB-LBM" is not explained.

 3. Line 117. It is not clear which program code is used for modeling within the framework of CA-FD methods. There are no References, no descriptions of the methods.

 4. Figure 1, line 261. Abbreviations "MPB", "HAZ" should be explained in the figure caption.

 5. Line 233 and Figure 2a. The effect of increased values for misorientation angles 28°-48° is not described.

 6. Lines 238, 239 and Figure 2b. The grain size estimate of 5–50 µm does not correspond to the data in Figure 2b.

 7. Figure 3d. Dendritic morphology is poorly visible, SEM micrograph is dark and not contrasting. There is no correspondence between the calculated data and the experiment.

 8. Figure 7. "This is a figure"??? Also in Figure 7, similarly to Figure 3, the correspondence between the calculated data and the experiment is not visible.

 9. Figures 3 and 7. Why different scales of calculated and experimental data?

 10. Conclusions. The conclusions should be rewrited. The first point is a mixture of the results of calculations and experiments, which are not related to each other. You should decide on the role of the experiment (see point 1). Points 2 and 3 - it is necessary to clarify the correspondence between experimental and calculated data. This was not shown in the text.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Thank you for your constructive comments and helpful suggestions for our manuscript (metals-1910365). Those comments and suggestions are very valuable for revising and improving our manuscript. According to your suggestions, we have made a careful revision on the original manuscript. All revised portions are highlighted with different color in the revised manuscript, and we hope that these improvements are satisfactory and the manuscript is now up to the standards of the journal Metals.

Again, thank you for your careful examination for our manuscript, and if you have any other questions, please feel free to contact with me.

Thank you and best regards!

Sincerely,
Xuewei Yan
Email:[email protected]

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Brief summary:

The submitted manuscript with the tittle „Simulation and experimental investigations on microstructure 2 evolution during additive manufacturing of AlSi10Mg alloy“ simulates growth of dendrite and eutectic of microstructure AlSi10Mg alloys during the Selective Laser melting process. A complex model was used from literature for these investigations and corresponding experiments were also prepared a did.

 General concept comments:

The topic of manuscript is interesting, manuscript is prepared at a good level, the processing is understandable. English seems to be fine, I understood the text, I did not find any serious grammatical errors.

I think it would increase the level of the manuscript if they added the author to the conclusion of the research, in addition to a summary of measurements and experiments, how the research will contribute to the study and use of the presented materials in application practice.

 Review:

The manuscript is suitable for this journal, it is clear and presented in a well-structured form, supplemeted by the photos, figures, table. The topic of the manuscript is interesting and scientifically appropriate.

Figures are related with the text and data, they are clear.

References are appropriate, current, related to the text. It is necessary to add citations to the text in some cases (see specific comments).

The presented model and results of the manuscript are reproducible on the basis of the parts mentioned in the article, but some details is necessary to fill (see specific comments).

Conclusions are consistended with argumets in the manuscript, but for my opinion one conclusion may be suitable, how the research contributed to the study and the application of the presented materials.

Specific comments:

1.      The introduction to the article is very well prepared with the use of literature and gets the reader into the issue

2.      Abbreviations (liness 23, 25) are used in the abstract that are not explained. It should properly be stated as it is in the Introduction (lines 51, 52).

3.      Reference [14] is not related to the text in line 71.

4.      In line 83, 131, 236 it would be appropriate to fill the citation.

5.      The mathematical model of SLM process is described by the equations used in [29], but the information, why this model was used in submitted paper for samples is mistaked.

6.      What does it mean w_e in equation (2), line 150?

7.      Authors write (line 288): “For experimental result (Figure 3d), it is worth noting that dendritic morphology is asymmetric and there are differences between the simulated and experimental results, because of the non-uniform solute distribution in growing tips under the influence of gravity and fluid flow. In addition, at the end of solidification, residual melt solidifies rapidly due to the absence of continuous heat source. Therefore, dendrite arms have no enough time to coarsen and present fine.”  Is it possible to set up the experiment so that the model is also suitable for this situation?

8.      Authors write (line 347): „Since the growth velocities of dendrite tips are also effected by the local solute concentration, it can be certainly expectable that the velocities of all dendritic tips commence from the higher values and then drop down to their different stable levels.“ What does it mean stable level in this work?

9.      The conclusion needs to be modified and the advantages and disadvantages of the given model for the used alloy must be added there, which is in concept with the goals of the journal Metals.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Thank you for your constructive comments and helpful suggestions for our manuscript (metals-1910365). Those comments and suggestions are very valuable for revising and improving our manuscript. According to your suggestions, we have made a careful revision on the original manuscript. All revised portions are highlighted with different color in the revised manuscript, and we hope that these improvements are satisfactory and the manuscript is now up to the standards of the journal Metals.

Again, thank you for your careful examination for our manuscript, and if you have any other questions, please feel free to contact with me.

Thank you and best regards!

Sincerely,
Xuewei Yan
Email:[email protected]

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Overall Recommendation: Accept in present form.