FE thermal model of Electron Beam Melting process to investigate different experimental microstructures for TiAl

γ-TiAl materials represent an important class of structural materials which already proved to be extremely promising for both automotive and aerospace applications. At present, the EBM is the most attractive additive manufacturing process for the production of TiAl components. In this study several samples of the alloy Ti-48Al-2Cr-2Nb (at%) were produced varying EBM process parameters such as line offset, speed function, max beam current and focus offset according to a DoE matrix exhibiting differences in terms of residual defects, microstructure, aluminum evaporation, etc. Within this work an FE thermal model of the EBM process was used in order to investigate and explain the above mentioned differences obtained during the process. The FE thermal model of the EBM process gives an idea of the reached temperature and showed that material is subjected to numerous thermal cycles before and after the EB scan, which lead to a first temperature raise before the EB scan, and then several remelting events of the same tracks.