IVRESS/EBPVD-MD

The Electron Beam Physical Vapor Deposition (EBPVD) coating process is used to apply ceramic and metallic thin films to critical components which require precise control over the coating thickness and physical properties. The process is primarily used to coat jet and gas power turbines blades, vanes, and other components with a temperature and wear resistant coating. It is also used in other industries such electronics, photonics, and medical industries, to provide coatings with specific electric conductance, optical properties, and biocompatibility/chemical properties, respectively. EBPVD is performed in a vacuum chamber with the parts moving (rotating and translating) with one or more electron-beam-melted sources emitting the coating molecules.

IVRESS/EBPVD-MD is a software tool which uses Molecular Dynamics (MD) for predicting the EBPVD coating thickness and micro-structure over complex geometry parts. The micro-structure of the coating includes the following metrics at any point on the part's surface: coating thickness, void fraction/coating density, degree of columnarity (single column angle vs many column angles), and average column angle deviation from normal. IVRESS/EBPVD-MD is typically used in conjunction with the -tracing based IVRESS/EBPVD-RT. IVRESS/EBPVD-RT is first used to quickly predict and optimize the coating configuration to achieve the desired coating thickness and quality. Then, IVRESS-EBPVD-MD can be used to predict and optimize the coating configuration to achieve the desired coating microstructure.

IVRESS-EBPVD-MD Features

User-friendly spreadsheet user-interface for defining the parts, fixtures, arm/port positions, coater motion recipe, and cloud shape/intensity.
Fast particle-based molecular dynamics using the Embedded Atom Method (EAM) algorithm to model the evolution of the coating micro-structure over the parts using Millions (typically 1 to 5 Million) of particles.
MD model parameters include: EAM potential, particle mass, inter-particle damping, particle release rate, and particle release speed. The shape of vapor cloud is modelled using a COS ^N power distribution.
Supports multiple coating sources.
Supports complex part motion programs including rotation and oscillation.

Virtual-reality based interactive post-processor, including:
- Coloring the parts using coating thickness or quality.
- Cross-sectioning of the parts to show the coating micro-structure over the part's cross-section.