Further Developments in Process Mapping and Modelling in Direct Metal Selective Laser Melting

This paper advances previous reported work on the mapping and modelling of single tracks and layers produced in powder beds of tool steel and stainless steel powders by a CO2 laser. For single tracks it reports on predicted and simulated track masses. It validates the simulations, including the use of absorption close to 1.0 when cylindrical tracks are formed. It also reports on melt pool temperature calculations and estimated melt pool dimensions which are used, in conjunction with bed physical properties, to explain why the single tracks form as either continuous with a crescent shape cross-section, continuous with an elliptical section, discontinuously irregularly broken, discontinuously balled or only partially melted as scan speeds and laser powers change. It then extends its scope, experimentally, to consider effects of scan spacing on single layer formation.