Direct laser deposition process within spectrographic analysis in situ

Direct Laser Deposition (DLD) is an emerging technology which shows great potential for direct manufacture. The high accuracy required makes DLD process control a challenge, especially compositional monitoring in real-time. The in situ application of spectroscopy is a very powerful tool to get more information about the created composition. Identification of elements by spectra lines can determine how the melt pool composition has been changed by laser irradiation in real-time. The work reported here centres on studies performed with laser cladding system and investigates the feasibility of applying real-time spectroscopy and fast digital imaging to the DLD process. (C) 2010 Published by Elsevier B.V.