STUDIES ON ENERGY PENETRATION AND MARANGONI EFFECT DURING LASER MELTING PROCESS

Abstract

Many additive manufacturing processes use energy from laser beam to melt powder particles to form layered objects. This paper mainly focused its attention on some of the major factors which plays a vital role during laser melting, namely energy penetration, shrinkage, absorptivity and marangoni effect. A study was performed to simulate and validate the effect of energy density on Marangoni effect and energy penetration. Analytical solutions to moving heat source problems were developed and their effects on process parameters viz. energy penetration through a layer of powder particles were validated. The numerical investigations demonstrated the significant effect of energy density on laser beam towards the laser track. Finally, experiments were performed to validate the simulations using Nd: YAG laser on SS316L powder particles. Thus this study would enable in optimizing the process parameters of the additive manufacturing process.

Keywords

• Selective laser melting
• Energy density
• Marangoni effect
• Absorptivity