Experimental and Simulation Study of Laser Aided Deposition Process using Image and Temperature Sensors

Laser aided deposition is a material additive based manufacturing process by metallurgically bonding the deposited material to the substrate. For a precise study of the process, a mathematical model was established to investigate thermal and mass transportation phenomena, which includes substrate melting and solidification as well as the powder heating process. The detailed process together with the temperature distribution is simulated. The simulation results of the melt pool length, width and peak temperature are validated for the laser deposition process through the measurements on the melt pool geometry and surface peak temperature by the CMOS camera and the dualwavelength temperature sensor. A smart embedded vision system using CMOS camera is used to measure the size of the melt pool. The length and width of the melt pool are measured in real time using CMOS camera with an on-board DSP processing system which processes the images in real time and provides the output through a serial port to a real-time controller. A dual wavelength non-contact temperature sensor is used for measuring the temperature of the melt pool in real time. . The comparison of the melt pool length and peak temperature was conducted between simulation and experiment and shows a good agreement