Temperature Control in Powder Bed Fusion of Metals via Inverse-Designed Laser Beam Shapes
Please login to view abstract download link
In this talk, we demonstrate how to control melt pool temperature and geometries in PBF-LB/M via inverse-designed laser beam shapes [1]. By imposing different shape constraints on the laser, and designing various objective functions, several new profiles are introduced through gradient-based optimization [2]. These novel shapes are experimentally reproduced using a highly flexible beam shaping setup based on spatial light modulators. Single-track experiments show that the inverse-designed laser shapes generate the intended melt track geometries with high accuracy compared to micrograph images. Importantly, measurements performed by multispectral imaging (MSI) demonstrate that the laser shapes achieve the intended temperature distributions. Limiting the liquid temperature in the optimization results in a beam shape that substantially reduces the melt pool temperature, as confirmed in the MSI measurements. Through multiple optimizations and experimental validations, we show how numerical optimization can guide advanced beam shaping for improved process control in PBF-LB/M.
