During the laser additive manufacturing of metal components

the thermal/mechanical cycles cause the deformation of the part. The pore and unmelted metal powder reduce the tensile and fatigue properties. The solidification microstructure

especially the columnar to equiaxed transition (CET)

determines the properties of final products. In view of the above three aspects

this study reviews the developments of the numerical simulating of laser additive manufacturing for metal components. The current researches and exist problems have been reviewed. And the numerical models used in the simulations have been discussed

including the finite element method (FEM) for thermal/mechanical problems

computational fluid dynamics (CFD) for the liquid metal flow in the molten pool and the numerical models (phase field (PF) and cellular automaton (CA)) for the solidification of microstructure. On the basis of this

the prospect and trend of the numerical simulation of the laser additive manufacturing for metal components are discussed.