Modeling the Effect of Non-Spherical Particle Size in Laser Metal Deposition Process

Abstract

Additive manufacturing (AM) is the standardized name to describe the new world of manufacturing technology that built 3D objects by adding materials in layers, whether the material is in plastic, ceramics, metal and or it is advancing towards human tissues.AM can also be described as rapid manufacturing (RM). AM processes needs only few basic dimensional details, understanding of AM machines and building material that could be used to manufacture the part. Laser metal deposition (LMD) is form of AM, a method that has a great possibility to reduce material waste through near net shape production as well as adding value to an already manufactured costly component (aviation and aerospace industry). Laser Metal deposition (LMD) process offers the potential to make a metallic component directly from CAD file. The focus of this study is an investigation of powder stream process, a sub process of LMD. Powder stream and processing parameters are highly important in clad formation, it directly affect powder distribution, temperature attenuation of beam and velocity during LMD. Various Modeling techniques have been used to model this sub process such as: dimensional modeling, statistical modeling and a review of analytical Modeling has been done. Effect of different processing parameters on clad height, clad width and surface hardness has been studied. The results of these investigations have also been validated with an experimental work.