Selective Laser Melting process monitoring with high speed infra-red camera and pyrometer

Laser assisted direct manufacturing and in particular Selective Laser Melting (SLM) becomes a promising manufacturing technique. Recent progress makes it possible to create fully functional parts directly from metal powder without using any intermediate binders or any additional processing steps after laser melting. At present only a few studies were carried out to monitor and to on-line control SLM process. In this paper, the optical diagnostic tools as infra-red camera and pyrometer are applied for SLM process visualization and control : surface temperature evolution, phenomena in laser-powder interaction zone, dynamics of droplets emitted from the molten pool.