Analysis of the powder flow characteristics for the direct laser deposition process

Direct laser deposition process is one of the advanced technologies in the current industrial and research scenario. In this process, metal and/or alloy powder is directly fed into the melt pool created by the laser to form the solid parts. The powder flow characteristics play an important role in the laser aided deposition. The melting of the powder depends mostly on the laser beam spot size and the powder flow from the nozzle. The intention of this contribution is to study this basic parameter of the powder flow in detail with respect to the coaxial deposition nozzle. Different nozzle dimensions are used to analyze the different flow patterns of the gravity fed powder in a cold stream. Rapid prototyping technique is used to make this analysis cost and time efficient. This analysis lays down the benchmark for the coaxial nozzle design used for the laser aided deposition process in a productive manner.