TSINGHUA SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

ISSN 1007-0214 26/38 pp154-159

Volume 14, Number S1, June 2009

Effect of Processing Parameters on Thermal Phenomena in

Direct Laser Metallic Powder Deposition*

HU Weiwei (胡围围), KANG Jinwu (康进武), HUANG Tianyou (黄天佑)**

Key Laboratory for Advanced Materials Processing Technology of Ministry of Education,

Department of Mechanical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China

Abstract: Direct laser metallic powder deposition technique is widely used in manufacturing, part repairing,
and metallic rapid prototyping. The ability to predict geometrical accuracy and residual stress requires an
understanding of temperature distribution during the deposition process. This study presents a numerical
model of three-dimensional transient heat transfer in a finite model heated by a moving laser beam. Thermal
phenomena in the process were investigated. The complex solid-liquid problem and latent heat of fusion
were treated by means of equivalent thermal conductivity and modified specific heat, respectively. Using
method of birth and death of elements, the growth of additive layers and the shape of melt pool were ob-
tained. The effect of processing parameters such as absorbed power, travel speed, and preheated tem-
perature on melt pool sizes and cross-section of deposited layer profile was studied. The results show that
the melt pool sizes increase with absorbed power and decrease with travel velocity. In addition, the pre-
heated temperature contributes less to the melt pool size. The results are generally in a good agreement
with experiments in published literature.

Key words: laser direct deposition; melt pool; cross-section profile; thermal field simulation

be manufactured by traditional method[1].

Introduction
Laser direct depositing of metallic powder is a new
rapid fabrication process in which three-dimensional
(3-D) metal structure is built layer by layer from CAD
model. The CAD model is firstly sliced in horizontal
sections, then the part beneath the laser beam moves as
metallic powder is added to fill in that layer. A
schematic illustration of the depositing process is
shown in Fig. 1. This process has the potential to
greatly reduce the time and cost required to fabricate
functional metal parts or complex parts which can not Fig. 1 Schematic of laser direct depositing of metallic
powder
Received: 2008-11-09; revised: 2008-12-18
In recent years, many experiments have been carried
* Supported by the National Key Basic Research and Development
(973) Program of China (No. 2007CB707704)
out to study various phenomena in the process, includ-
** To whom correspondence should be addressed.
ing temperature distribution, thermal-stress, and de-
E-mail: henry161@163.com; Tel: 86-10-62784537 formation and cracks[2-6]. In addition, some numerical
 HU Weiwei (胡围围) et al：Effect of Processing Parameters on Thermal Phenomena …
models are also developed to simulate the process. The
interactions between laser beam, powder, and melting
pool free surface are the basic issue. Therefore, the
powder distribution, laser beam mode influence, tem-
perature distribution, and residual stress are exten-
sively studied numerically. To fabricate finished parts
with high dimension accuracy, it is very important to
ensure stable melt pool geometry, i.e., to keep a con-
sistent building condition. Two-dimensional (2-D)
numerical models have been developed to show the
dependency of melt pool size on important parameters
involved[7]. In this study, a 3-D numerical model
is established. The influence of processing parameters
on deposition profile and melt pool dimensions is
investigated.
1 Mathematical Modeling
1.1 Governing equations and boundary conditions
The temperature distribution T(x, y, z, t) is obtained
from the 3-D heat transfer in the substrate as[8]
∂ ( ρ Cp T )
+ ∇( ρ CpV T ) − ∇( K ∇T ) = Q (1)
∂t
where Q is the power generation per unit volume of
substrate (W/m3), K is the thermal conductivity (W/(m•
℃)), Cp is the specific heat capacity (J/(kg•℃)), ρ is
the density (kg/m3), t is the time (s), and V is the travel
speed of substrate (m/s). The boundary condition is
− K (∇T in) |Ω =
⎧⎪α I ( x, y , z , t ) − hc (T − T0 ) − ε tσ (T 4 − T04 ) if Ω ∈ Γ ;
⎨
⎪⎩−hc (T − T0 ) − ε tσ (T − T0 ) if Ω ∉ Γ
4 4
(2)
where n is the normal vector of the surface, I(x, y, z, t)
is the laser energy distribution on the part (W/m2), α is
the absorption factor, hc is heat convection coefficient
(W/(m2 •℃)), ε t is the emissivity, σ is Stefan-Boltz-
mann constant, Ω is the part surface (m2), Γ is the
surface heated by the laser beam (m2), and T0 is the
ambient/reference temperature (℃).
The following conditions should be satisfied:
T(x, y, z, 0)=T0 (3)
and T(x, y, z, ∞)=T0 (4)
Considering the effects of latent heat of fusion, and
melt pool/powder and substrate/powder interactions,
the following adjustments are combined.
The effect of latent heat of fusion is considered by
155
adjusting the specific heat, as
∂fs
Cpe = Cp − L (5)
∂T
where Cpe is the equivalent specific heat capacity, L
is the latent heat, and fs is the ratio of solid phase. Ac-
cording to the curve of fs (T ) in MAGMA material base,
it can be approximated with a parabola function, so
∂fs
is defined as
∂T
∂fs −1
= (6)
∂T 2 (Tl − Ts )(Tl − T )
where Tl is the melting temperature and Ts is the
solidus temperature.
The effect of fluid motion due to thermocapillary
phenomenon can be considered by modifying the
thermal conductivity at different temperature, which
has been proved. This effect can be presented as
follows:
K * (T ) = γ K (Tl ), if T > Tl (7)
where γ is the modification coefficient and K* is the
modified thermal conductivity (W/(m•℃)). The modi-
fication coefficient is suggested to be 2 or more.
1.2 Assumptions for computation
Due to the complex interactions between laser, powder,
and melt pool, some assumptions below are given
which are based on the results by other researchers[8,9].
The powder added into the melt pool melts at once.
The momentum loss of powder, due to the interaction
of powder/melt pool or powder/substrate, is assumed
to be a function of temperature. If the calculated ele-
ment temperature is higher than material melting tem-
perature, the powder will lose all its momentum, be
added to the substrate, and become a part of it, while
the powder that strikes the solid area is not added.
Therefore, the part growth is realized.
Consequently, the height of additive material
Δh( x, y, t ) is as follows:
m′ ( x, y, t ) Δt
Δh( x, y, t ) = p,0 (8)
ρ
where ρ is the density of the powder material (kg/m3),
′ is the flow rate per area of powder with zero
mp,0
momentum, which is added to the substrate.
Both the laser beam and metallic powder distribu-
tion are assumed to be spatially plane uniform. A lens
is installed to make the laser energy distribute more
 156
evenly. It is reasonable, given the goal is to get
the trend of dimension dependency on processing
parameters.
1.3 Calculation method
In the study, death and birth of elements method is
used to simulate the deposition of powder materials.
Since the thin wall structure is symmetric, it is divided
into two parts and a half structure is calculated to im-
prove the computation efficiency.
The finite element algorithm is shown in Fig. 2.
Based on the travel velocity, a laser beam is succes-
sively applied on the finite element model to form a
melt pool. Meanwhile, the substrate is affected by the
laser beam and the temperature increases. When the
powder is injected, the corresponding elements are
activated and the alive elements together with the sub-
strate and deposited layer are calculated as a domain.
The parameters applied in the process are changed to
investigate their effect on melt pool size. After each
calculation, the sizes of the melt pool are measured, as
shown in Fig. 3. The isothermal boundary at material
melting temperature is used to characterize the melt
pool size.
Fig. 2 Schematic illustration of finite element algorithm
2 Results and Discussion
The deposition for building a layer is carried out on a
SS304 substrate with dimension of 40 mm×15 mm×
8 mm. In the calculation, a solid model is set up as
shown in Fig. 3a. SS304 stainless steel powder is de-
posited onto the substrate. The material properties are
taken from commercial software MAGMA material
database. Processing parameters, listed in Table 1, are
kept constant during the deposition while other input
Table 1 Process parameters
T0 /℃ 25
m'/(g∙min−1) 5.49
L / (kJ∙kg−1) 255.98
D/m 0.001
Notes: D: diameter of laser beam; m': powder feeding rate
Tsinghua Science and Technology, June 2009, 14(S1): 154-159
parameters such as absorbed power, travel velocity,
and preheating temperature are changed in each case.
(a) Melt pool length
(b) Melt pool size at cross section
Fig. 3 Schematic illustration of melt pool size and
deposited height
2.1 Effect of absorbed power on thermal
phenomena and melt pool size
For absorbed power Pa=47 W and travel velocity
V=6 mm/s, 4 different nodes (4, 5, 15, 35) along the
laser beam travel path are designated to show the
heating process, these nodes are on the line in the
symmetry plane of laser scanning and the distance be-
tween them are linear with the differences of node
number. Corresponding temperature results for each
node are shown in Fig. 4. The peak temperature in-
creases when laser beam scanning from starting end
node 4 to node 5. In addition, the temperature curves
are very close due to small distance between them.
However, the peak temperatures of nodes 15 and 35
are almost stable, which means the heat transfer is
quasi-static beyond certain distance where the end ef-
fect can be neglected. A detailed temperature curve of
node 15 is typical, shown in Fig. 5. The peak tempera-
ture reaches after 0.5333 s. After 1.8 s, the temperature
falls to 173℃ with an average cooling rate of
−1437℃/s. In fact, the cooling rate changes all the
time, so the curve is divided into 4 parts and investi-
gated in detail.
 HU Weiwei (胡围围) et al：Effect of Processing Parameters on Thermal Phenomena …
Fig. 4 Temperature curves at 4 nodes, Pa = 47 W
Fig. 5 Temperature of node 15, Pa = 47 W
In the period A, the node temperature falls from
1898℃ to 1432℃ (the temperature range of phase
change is 1424-1454℃) with a cooling rate of
−3495℃/s. From 1432℃ to 667℃ in the period B,
cooling rate is −5738℃/s. The reason for much lower
cooling rate in the period A is that the latent heat is
released during rapid solidification of melt pool. In the
period C and period D, cooling rates are −922℃/s and
−234℃/s, respectively. The heat transfer is much more
efficient in higher temperature range (periods A and
B).
Hofmeister et al.[10] studied experimentally the tem-
perature and cooling rate around the melt pool by
thermal imaging technology. The measured cooling
rate is −1×103℃/s, ranging from −200 to −6000℃/s[10].
Therefore, the calculated results are reasonable.
With other conditions fixed, the absorbed laser
power applied on the finite element model changes
from 40 W to 80 W. The corresponding melt pool
length, deposited height, and ratio of melt pool depth
to width are shown in Fig. 6. At first, the melt pool
length increases faster with more power absorbed, then
increases with a smaller slope when absorbed power
157
greater than 55 W. The ratio of depth/width is used to
describe the shape of the melt pool and dilution rate of
materials. As absorbed power increases, distinct evolu-
tion of the melt pool boundary can be seen, the melt
pool depth increases faster than width, the penetration
phenomenon of laser beam is obvious at higher power.
On the other hand, lower dilution rate can be achieved
when the melt pool depth is smaller. In fact, higher
power leads to higher energy density applied on the
part surface when the beam diameter fixed, this is the
evidence for small diameter laser beam used for cut-
ting. Based on this point, smaller HAZ parts can be
obtained with higher power density. In other words, it
is an effective way to manufacture delicate or small
size parts by reducing the laser beam diameter. The
height of deposited layer increases quickly with ab-
sorbed power increase, as shown in Fig. 6. Because the
powder feeding rate is constant in this case, all the
powders that can be melted and deposited are fully
deposited when the power reaches a certain value. This
is the reason why the height in the last part of the curve
keeps the same rather than increase. For different ab-
sorbed power, there exists a suitable powder feeding
rate to optimize the depositing process and save mate-
rials. In this case, metallic powder is fully deposited
when Pa is about 55 W.
Fig. 6 Melt pool size at various absorbed powers
Compared with experiment results in Ref. [7], the
calculated results agree with the experiments, as shown
in Fig. 6. The biggest deviation value is no more than
16%. The difference between calculated results and
measured sizes is acceptable.
2.2 Effect of travel velocity V on melt pool size
In this case, Pa is kept constant (Pa =50 W) and the
 158
travel velocity is changed from 5 mm/s to 8 mm/s with
an increment of 0.5 mm/s to investigate the effect, the
results are obtained. The melt pool sizes for each con-
dition are shown in Fig. 7. The melt pool length de-
creases slightly as the velocity increases by a big per-
centage. Obviously, the bigger the travel velocity is,
the shorter the time is for materials to be heated by the
laser beam. In addition, the laser beam heats the mate-
rials so rapidly that different irradiation time just has
small effect on the temperature distribution. Conse-
quently, the melt pool length does not change much. So
does the ratio of depth to width. It is no more than 8%
variation in terms of ratio value. It should be noticed
that these above results are just validated for the tested
velocity range. Compared with the effect of Pa on
depth/width ratio in Fig. 6, travel velocity is a secon-
dary factor to determine the melt pool shape. But the
deposited height of metals decreases a lot when travel
velocity increases, meaning that lower velocity con-
tributes more to deposition in z axis direction. If the
laser beam scans too fast, a discontinuous deposited
layer will be caused[11].
Fig. 7 Melt pool size at various travel speeds
Melt pool length sizes at three different velocities
are provided according to experiment results. They are
shown in Fig. 7. The calculated results and measured
results give the same trend of melt pool length size
dependency on travel velocity.
2.3 Effect of preheating temperature on melt pool
size
Due to the high thermal gradient around the melt pool,
residual stress is a big issue in laser direct deposition
process of metallic powder, which plays a very impor-
tant role in residual stress-induced distortion. To
minimize the residual stress, substrate and powder are
Tsinghua Science and Technology, June 2009, 14(S1): 154-159
preheated. In this study, four different preheating tem-
peratures are investigated (100℃, 200℃, 300℃, and
400℃) while having other processing parameters fixed
(Pa=50 W, V=6 mm/s). The melt pool sizes under each
condition are shown in Fig. 8. Preheating temperature
lower than 150℃ contributes less to the melt pool
length size. When the substrate is preheated to a certain
temperature (200℃ or so), the melt pool sizes are
slightly affected. Even at 400℃, the melt pool size
increases no more than 10%, the ratio of depth to width
is otherwise. So the melt pool shape can be adjusted by
the preheating process. The deposited height of metal
is affected by the preheating temperature, and the
powders are more efficiently utilized at higher pre-
heating temperature. Since the powder feeding rate is
constant, the deposited height does not change when
the preheating temperature exceeds a certain value.
Fig. 8 Melt pool size at various preheating temperature
Because of the energy absorbed by materials in pre-
heating process, the peak temperature changes. As the
temperature curves of nodes 5, 15, and 35 shown in
Fig. 9, the peak temperature increases by about 300℃
when the substrate is preheated to 400℃.
3 Conclusions
A 3-D transient model of the melt pool with moving
laser beam was established. The solid-liquid heat
transfer problem and latent heat of fusion were treated
by means of equivalent thermal conductivity and
modified specific heat. With death and birth of ele-
ments method, the process of depositing powder was
simulated.
The effects of processing parameters such as
absorbed laser power, travel velocity, and preheating
temperature were investigated. The results show that
 HU Weiwei (胡围围) et al：Effect of Processing Parameters on Thermal Phenomena …
(a) Node temperature curves without preheating
(b) Node temperature curves, preheated to 400℃
Fig. 9 Node temperature curves with preheating
melt pool sizes increase with the absorbed laser power
and the melt pool boundary can be largely affected by
the laser power. Higher travel velocity reduces the melt
pool size and deposited height. However, the ratio of
depth to width of melt pool keeps almost the same al-
though the travel velocity changes a lot. Uniform pre-
heating does not increase melt pool size significantly,
but it contributes much to the deposited height. Since
preheating has an impact on residual stress, the sub-
strate can be preheated to minimize residual stress-
induced distortion with small changes in other laser
processing parameters.
159
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