Numerical and Analytical Modeling of Laser Deposition With Preheating

Laser deposition allows quick fabrication of fully-dense metallic components directly from CAD solid models. This work uses both numerical and analytical approaches to model the laser deposition process including actual deposition and preheating. The numerical approach is used to simulate the coupled, interactive transport phenomena during actual deposition. The numerical simulation involves laser material interaction, free surface evolution, and melt-pool dynamics. The analytical approach is used to model heat transfer during preheating. The combination of these two approaches can increase computational efficiency with most of the phenomena associated with laser deposition modeled. The simulation is applied to Ti-6Al-4V and simulation results are compared with experimental results.