Laser freeform fabrication comprises selective laser sintering and laser melting technologies and allows the production of complex 3D-workpieces by solidifying powder materials like polymers, metals, ceramics and composites. The development of new material systems for the laser generating process requires time and cost intensive experiments.

Final properties of laser generated layers and parts depend on process parameters as well as on characteristics of powder materials. With this contribution, a method is presented to reduce experimental studies by a theoretical analysis of the process. With the presented simulation, the influence of processing parameters can be derived and identified for a big variety of materials. The developed model has been validated on selected metals and metal ceramic composites.

The combination of theoretical calculation of material behaviour and experiments, with respect to the type of laser, reduces the effort for process parameter optimization significantly. Based on this method there has been developed a new metal ceramic composite in order to satisfy tribological applications for components in fluid machines.

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