Numerical modeling of the thermal behavior during the LENS® process

Laser Engineered Net-Shaping (LENS (R)) is an emerging manufacturing technique that ensures significant reduction of process time between initial design and final components. The fabrication of fully dense parts with appropriate properties using the LENS (R) process requires an in-depth understanding of the entire thermal behavior of the process. In this paper, the thermal behavior during LENS (R) was studied, both numerically and experimentally. Temperature distribution and gradient in the fabricated part were obtained by finite element method (FEM) simulation. The numerical results are in good agreement with the experimental observations. The numerical method may be used to optimize process parameters and predict the thermal response of LENS (R) fabricated components. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.