Direct laser fabrication of thin-walled metal parts under open-loop control

Direct laser fabrication (DLF) is an advanced manufacturing technology, which can build full density metal parts directly from CAD files without using any modules or tools. The investigation on the fabrication of thin-walled parts of nickel alloy using open-loop DLF process is introduced in this paper. The experimental setup consisted of a CO2 laser, a 3-axis CNC table, a coaxial powder nozzle and a powder recycler. The 3D-CAD file of a thin-walled metal part was converted into the STL file format and imported into software HUST-RP to generate 'pseudo-random' scanning paths of laser beam. The influence of process parameters on the build height of thin-walled metal parts was studied by 1-10 layered single-bead stacks of nickel alloy. The result shows that the interference factors which affect the build height of thin-walled metal parts occur randomly during the process. For open-loop DLF process, thin-walled metal parts can achieve much better shape quality if the process parameters are suitable. Multilayer single-bead walls were built up with different scanning velocity to obtain the optimal process parameters of thin-walled parts of nickel alloy. It shows that thin walls of nickel alloy with uniform height can be built up layer by layer in a certain range of specific energy. However, it is difficult to control the build height of complex thin-walled metal parts in an accurate manner just using optimal parameters. A special coaxial powder nozzle was designed in this paper. In a certain range, the deposition thickness of the nozzle is nearly linearly increased with increase in the standoff distance between the powder focusing point of the nozzle and the deposition substrate. By means of the nozzle, a novel method to control the build height of thin-walled metal parts using open-loop DLF process was introduced. The difference in build height of a thin-walled part can be compensated automatically in one or several layers during the process. It is proved that the build height of a thin-walled metal part can be accurately controlled in theory using the nozzle. A complex single-bead part of nickel alloy whose geometry was designed to be the well-known Chinese 'FU' was fabricated and explained in this paper. The result shows that the shape quality of the sample is quite good, and actual build height of the sample is 53.54 mm while the designed value is 54 mm. (C) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.