Melt pool monitoring and process optimisation of directed energy deposition via coaxial thermal imaging

Abstract

In Laser-based Directed Energy Deposition of metal powder, the use of optimised parameters allows the deposition of defect-free material, while diverging from these optimised parameters can typically result in high porosity, high dilution or different track geometry. One of the main challenges when building complex geometries is that the geometrical and thermal conditions of the deposition are constantly changing, which requires to adjust the process parameters during the production. In order to facilitate this process, sensors such as thermal cameras can be used to extract data from the process and adapt the parameters to keep the process stable despite external disturbances. In this research, different signals extracted from a coaxial thermal camera are investigated and compared for process optimisation. To investigate such possibilities, five overlapped tracks are deposited at constant laser powers in order to extract average pixel values as well as the melt pool area, length, width and orientation. The behaviour of each track deposition is modelled as a function of the laser power, and these models are used to calculate and test laser power reduction strategies based on different signals. The results show that the melt pool area is the most relevant signal to use for an efficient process control, resulting in a stable process with only ±1.6 % of signal variation from track to track.