Applied Thermal Engineering 211 (2022) 118515

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Applied Thermal Engineering

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apthermeng

Research Paper

Online in-situ monitoring of melt pool characteristic based on a single

high-speed camera in laser powder bed fusion process
Heng Ma a, 1, Zhuangzhuang Mao a, 1, Wei Feng a, 1, Yang Yang b, Ce Hao c, Jiangfan Zhou d,
Sheng Liu e, Huimin Xie f, Guangping Guo b, Zhanwei Liu a, *
a
School of Aerospace Engineering, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing 100081, China
b
AECC Beijing Institute of Aeronautical Materials, Beijing 100095, China
c
AECC Commercial Aircraft Engine Co. Ltd., Shanghai 200241, China
d
Beijing Institute of Structure and Environment Engineering, Beijing 100076, China
e
School of Power and Mechanical Engineering, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, China
f
AML, Department of Engineering Mechanics, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: In metal additive manufacturing (AM), the in-situ measurement of the melt pool characteristic plays a significant
Additive manufacturing role in monitoring the quality of the printed components. In this work, based on dual-wavelength thermometry, a
Laser powder bed fusion coaxial melt pool temperature measurement system with a single high-speed camera in the laser powder bed
Online in-situ monitoring
fusion (LPBF) process is developed, including the design of the relay and optical path amplification system, and
Melt pool characteristic
the beam splitting and chromatic aberration correction system. Moreover, a dual-waveband image-matching
Temperature measurement
method with sub-pixel accuracy, and an overall parameter calibration and optimization method are proposed to
improve the accuracy of the coaxial temperature measurement system. Besides, the validation experiment
measured by a high-temperature blackbody furnace and a standard photoelectric pyrometer indicates that the
temperature measuring error of the developed system is less than 1%. The melt pool characteristics including the
temperature distribution, profile, temperature gradient, and cooling rate were measured by the developed co­
axial temperature measurement system, and the distribution of average temperature and peak temperature under
different linear energy densities during single-line printing was also compared and analyzed. The single-line
printing results of different parameters show that the higher the linear energy density, the higher the average
temperature and peak temperature of the melt pool, and the optimized parameters minimize the fluctuation of
melt pool temperature and are more favorable to the formation of high-quality parts. In multi-layer printing
mode, the heat accumulation is strong, resulting in the slow cooling rate of the melt pool.

1. Introduction Nevertheless, the LPBF is an evolution process involving a variety of

Laser Powder Bed Fusion (LPBF) is a common additive
manufacturing (AM) process. In the LPBF, powder particles spread onto
a substrate, and are melted via interaction with a laser beam to manu­
facture a 3D part layer-by-layer using the data of a three-dimensional
(3D) model [1,2]. Owing to its ability to design new geometric shapes,
manufacture complex parts, decrease pollutant emission, custom parts,
and reduce cost, the LPBF is widely used in different industries such as
medical, military, aerospace, construction, medical, and automotive
[3–7].
physical fields and complex dynamics, including the melting, gasifica­
tion, and solidification of metal powder particles. In the process, macro
defects such as cracks, spheroidization, and warpage, as well as internal
metallurgical defects such as pores and inclusions may occur. Therefore,
lack of quality assurance and performance control is the key techno­
logical barrier hindering the LPBF technology from being widely
employed. The implementation of in-situ monitoring and adaptive
feedback control appears to be a powerful strategy for understanding
defect formation [8–15].
The temperature measurement of melt pool characteristics is a

* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: liuzw@bit.edu.cn (Z. Liu).
1
Co-first authors.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2022.118515
Received 18 November 2021; Received in revised form 9 March 2022; Accepted 10 April 2022
Available online 13 April 2022
1359-4311/© 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
H. Ma et al.
common approach to process monitoring, which helps to identify pro­
cess instabilities, and provides insight into the qualities of parts. The
research shows that the melt pool temperature is related to the defect
formation, microstructure of products, mechanical properties of prod­
ucts, and printing parameters [8,16–22]. Khanzadeh et al. [8] proposed
a novel porosity prediction method based on the temperature distribu­
tion of the melt pool in the directed energy deposition (DED) process,
and results showed that the proposed method can predict the location of
porosity almost 96% of the time. Kriczky et al. [16] used a two-
wavelength pyrometer to obtain the coaxial thermal image of the melt
pool, and evaluated variations in build quality by extracting
temperature-related features such as length-to-width ratio, temperature
gradient, melt pool area, and peak temperature. Rezaeifar et al. [17]
controlled the temperature of the melt pool by controlling the laser
power, collected the temperature of the melt pool with a two-
wavelength pyrometer, and studied the printed samples from both
microstructure and microhardness. The results showed that the tem­
perature had a great impact on the uniformity of the microstructure and
mechanical properties of the final part. The researches of sun et al. [18]
and song et al. [19] showed that the grain shape and size formed in the
printing process were determined by the temperature gradient G, the
solidification rate R, and cooling rate. The temperature gradient de­
termines the grain growth direction, the cooling rate determines the
grain size, and the ratio of a temperature gradient to solidification rate
G/R determines the grain morphology. With the decrease of the ratio G/
R, the microstructure changes from plane crystals to cellular crystals,
columnar crystals, and equiaxed crystals. With the increase of cooling
rate, the grains will become finer. However, the too fast cooling rate will
lead to greater brittleness or cracks. As the cooling rate increases, the
crystal grains become finer, but a too fast cooling rate will cause larger
brittleness or cracks. Hojjatzadeh et al. [20] found that the movement
behavior of the pores in the melt pool is controlled by the competition
between the melt flow resistance and the thermal capillary force caused
by the temperature gradient. A pore elimination method was proposed
for the first time, that was, by adjusting the printing process parameters
to obtain a higher temperature gradient in the melt pool, the resulting
thermal capillary force directionally drove and discharged the pores, to
obtain metal samples without pore defects. Lee et al. [21] used the near-
infrared camera to observe the temperature change of each deposition
layer during printing and identified the crack based on this criterion. It is
summarized that crack defects appear and disappear periodically with
the scanning direction and position, and the crack is related to the
scanning strategy and the geometry of the sample. Hermann et al. [22]
adopted the thermography technique to collect temperature images of
the melt pool along the axis and established a neural network model
with a detection accuracy of 96.80% for defects such as delamination
and splashing. LI et al. [23] found that the average temperature of the
powder bed gradually increased during the LPBF process, caused by the
heat accumulation effect, and the microstructure of LPBF-produced
parts was investigated. Liu et al. [24] discovered through the DED
experimental results that the temperature of the melt pool was related to
its heat accumulation, and the profile of the melt pool was mainly
affected by the overall heat accumulation. Wu et al. [25] analyzed that
due to the influences of thermal accumulation, the layer’s surface
oxidation, microstructural evolution, grain size, and crystalline phase
varied along the building direction of the as-fabricated wall, which
created variations in mechanical properties and fracture features.
Therefore, the melt pool temperature can be used as a significant
parameter for defect detection and identification.
The non-contact temperature measurement method based on the
radiation temperature measurement principle is mostly used to detect
the melt pool temperature, which mainly includes two types. The first is
to measure the melt pool temperature based on the commercial high-
speed infrared camera or high-speed pyrometer, and then correct the
material emissivity; The second is to design the temperature measure­
ment optical path and build the temperature measurement system based
2
Applied Thermal Engineering 211 (2022) 118515
on the colorimetric thermometry principle.
The structure of the first type of measurement method is generally
not complicated. Krauss et al. [26] mounted the medium resolution
infrared camera outside the building chamber enclosing an angle of 45◦
with the building platform to measure the spatial distribution charac­
teristics and time-domain changes of the solidified layer temperature
during the printing process. Zheng et al. [27] arranged an infrared
camera coaxially with the laser to monitor the temperature of the melt
pool during the LPBF process. According to the gradient distribution
characteristics, the melt pool boundary was identified and extracted to
predict the width of the printing track. Lane et al. [28] adopted a high-
speed in-situ infrared camera with a maximum frame rate of 120 FPS
and a resolution of 1280 pixels × 1024 pixels to observe multiple phe­
nomena such as plasma plume and hot particle ejection in the melt re­
gion. Hua et al. [29] used a two-color infrared thermometer to measure
the temperature of the melt pool during the printing process and
investigated the influence of different parameters, such as powder feed
rate, scanning velocity of a laser beam, laser power, spot diameter,
shielding gas flow rate and powder feeding position. However, in the AM
process, the powder particles are transformed from solid to liquid, and
then cooled and solidified into a solid. In the whole process, the emis­
sivity of the melt pool will change [30], which makes it impossible to
obtain an accurate melt pool temperature only by an infrared camera
with a fixed emissivity.
The principle of colorimetric thermometry is to establish a linear
relationship between the radiation intensity ratio of two similar wave­
lengths and the temperature of the object to be measured, so the
colorimetric thermometry is not affected by the change of the surface
emissivity of the object. Even in the area disturbed by soot, steam, and
particles, the ratio remains unchanged because the attenuation degree of
the radiation energy of the two wavelengths is approximatively the
same, therefore, high-temperature measurement accuracy can still be
obtained. In addition, the fast response speed and wide range make the
colorimetric thermometry have great development potential in the field
of melt pool temperature measurement. Furumoto et al. [31] built a
dual-wavelength colorimetric thermometry system based on the single-
point measurement and integrated it into the LPBF equipment to mea­
sure the temperature of the melt pool during the printing process. The
temporal resolution can meet the measurement requirements, but the
spatial distribution of the melt pool temperature can’t be obtained.
Hooper et al. [32] proposed a coaxial imaging method through two high-
speed cameras to obtain the melt pool surface temperature field at a high
frame rate (100000FPS) and high spatial resolution (20 µm). The
colorimetric thermometry was used to measure the temperature field
distribution and cooling rate of the melt pool at different positions in the
process. However, the cost of two high-speed cameras is high, and their
synchronization is difficult to ensure.
The focus of this paper is to highlight the proposed coaxial temper­
ature measurement system based on a single high-speed camera and
method. The coaxial temperature measurement system includes the
relay and optical path amplification system, the beam splitting and
chromatic aberration correction system, while the dual-waveband
image-matching method with sub-pixel accuracy, and the overall
parameter (K, λ1 and λ2 ) calibration and optimization method enhance
the accuracy of the system. Besides, the validation experiment proves
the high accuracy of the system. The melt pool characteristics were
measured by the coaxial temperature measurement system, and the
temperature distribution, temperature gradient, cooling rate, and profile
of the melt pool under the different printing modes are obtained and
discussed.
H. Ma et al.
2. Development, accuracy improvement and validation of
coaxial temperature measurement system
2.1. Principles of dual-wavelength thermometry
The dual-wavelength thermometry is a non-contact radiation
temperature measurement method that has been widely used in the field
of infrared temperature measurement because of its special advantages
such as high-temperature measurement accuracy, strong anti-
interference ability, fast response, and large temperature measurement
range. In the LPBF process, facing the measurement problems such as
high melt pool temperature (up to 4000 K in the printing process of
titanium alloy), interference by smoke and powder particle splash, wide
melt pool temperature range, and extremely short melt pool formation
and solidification time, the dual-wavelength thermometry can still
measure the melt pool with high accuracy. For a melt pool, the
temperature can be calculated by the following formula [24]:
( )
hc 1
− λ12
(1)
k λ1
T=
lnK + ln GG21 + 5ln λλ21
where c represents the speed of light, h represents Planck constant, k
represents the Boltzmann constant, K represents proportional coefficient
obtained by system calibration experiment, λ1 and λ2 represent two
different wavelengths respectively, and G1 and G2 represent the gray
value of the captured image at the two different wavelengths respec­
tively. When calculating the temperature field distribution of the melt
pool, the gray values of different pixels are not the same. If m × n rep­
resents the pixel size of the melt pool, the temperature field distribution
formula can be expressed as
( )
c2 λ11 − λ12
T(x, y) = (x,y)
(2)
G
lnK + ln 2(x,y) + 5ln λλ21
G1
where x = 1, 2, ⋯, n; y = 1, 2, ⋯, n, c2 is the second radiation constant,
andc2 = hc/k.
Fig. 1. Schematic of coaxial temperature measurement system with a single camera for high-speed temperature measurement of melt pool in LPBF process.
3
Applied Thermal Engineering 211 (2022) 118515
2.2. Development of coaxial temperature measurement system with a
single camera
2.2.1. Overall design scheme of coaxial temperature measurement system
with a single camera
The schematic of the coaxial temperature measurement system with
a single camera for high-speed temperature measurement of the melt
pool in the LPBF process is shown in Fig. 1, including a 1000 nm long-
pass dichroic mirror, a relay and optical path amplification system, a
beam splitting and chromatic aberration correction system, and a high-
speed camera.
In Fig. 1, the 1000 nm long-pass dichroic mirror is located between
the laser and the dynamic focus module. When the LPBF device starts
printing, the laser first passes through the 1000 nm long-pass dichroic
mirror placed at 45◦ to the laser beam. The dichroic mirror has a high
damage threshold to the continuous laser. The 1000 nm long-pass
dichroic mirror divides the initial waveband into a transmission band
and a reflection band. The side of the dichroic mirror coated with the
dichroic film faces the dynamic focus module, and this side reflects the
waveband shorter than 1000 nm. The side of the dichroic mirror coated
with the antireflection coating faces the laser, and this side transmits the
waveband longer than 1000 nm. The laser with a wavelength of 1070
nm passes through the 1000 nm long-pass dichroic mirror and then is
expanded by the dynamic focus module. The expanded laser is reflected
by the galvanometer into the focusing lens and finally focused on the
printing plane. Immediately afterward, the powder bed on the printing
plane is heated and melted to produce the melt pool. The infrared light
radiated by the melt pool passes through the focusing lens, the galva­
nometer, and the dynamic focus module in a coaxial reflection manner.
The radiant light from the melt pool is shrunk by the dynamic focus
module into a near-parallel light and then enters the 1000 nm long-pass
dichroic mirror through the side coated with the dichroic film. The
waveband of the radiant light shorter than 1000 nm is reflected upwards
into the relay and optical path amplification system. After the radiant
light is extended and amplified by the relay and optical path amplifi­
cation system, it is reflected into the beam splitting and chromatic ab­
erration correction system. The beam splitting and chromatic aberration
correction system divides the radiant light into the transmission wave­
band and the reflection waveband on the target surface of the high-speed
camera, to obtain the image containing the left and right sub-images of
the melt pool under two different wavebands, which will provide the
basis for obtaining the temperature field of the melt pool.
H. Ma et al.
2.2.2. Design scheme of relay and optical path amplification system
The relay and optical path amplification system is located in the red
box in Fig. 1, including relay lens 1, relay lens 2, adjusting lens barrel 1,
adjusting lens barrel 2, planar mirror 1. The relay lens 1 is the achro­
matic double glued lens pair, and one focal length of the two lenses is
100 mm and the other is 30 mm. Similarly, the relay lens 2 also consists
of a pair of lenses a pair of lens, and the focal length of them is 100 mm.
On the LPBF equipment, the 1000 nm long-pass dichroic mirror can be
placed on the experimental platform of the beam splitting and chromatic
aberration correction system and the high-speed camera. The experi­
mental platform often has a long distance in the vertical direction, so to
ensure the flexibility of the placement and adjustment of the beam
splitting and chromatic aberration correction system and the high-speed
camera, it is necessary to extend the radiant light from the melt pool by
adjusting the length of the relay lens 1. Since the diameter of the melt
pool in the LPBF process is only 300–500 µm, the resolution of the high-
speed camera is only 1024 pixels × 1024 pixels, and the size of a single
pixel on the target surface is 20 µm × 20 µm, a certain enlargement of
the melt pool is required. It is possible to obtain a melt pool image with
more pixels during high-speed acquisition, which requires the relay and
optical path amplification system to have an amplification function. The
principle schematic of the relay and optical path amplification system is
shown in Fig. 2. The light emitted from points at different positions is
magnified by 3.3 times through the relay lens, because the focal length
of the relay lens 1–1 is 30 mm and the focal length of the relay lens 1–2 is
100 mm. The magnification is equal to the ratio of the image distance to
the object distance, so by adjusting the distance between the light
starting point and the lens, the magnification of the relay lens will also
change. In the experiment, under the joint action of relay lens 1 and
relay lens 2, the diameter of the melt pool image on the target surface of
the high-speed camera is about 800 µm. Assuming the true diameter of
the melt pool is 400 µm, the melt pool image can be magnified twice, and
the distance between the high-speed camera and the relay lens 2 is about
500 mm. Both relay lens 1 and relay lens 2 are coated with 650–1050 nm
antireflection coating to minimize the attenuation effect of the relay and
optical path amplification system on the radiation intensity of the melt
pool. In addition, relay lens 1 and relay lens 2 have achromatic ability.
Because there are many lenses between the melt pool and the high-speed
camera, the distance between the two is relatively long, which may
cause strong chromatic aberration. In order to improve the accuracy of
the captured melt pool images, it is necessary to use achromatic lenses. It
is worth noting that the achromatic lens has the effect of reducing
chromatic aberration, but it cannot completely eliminate chromatic
aberration.
2.2.3. Design scheme of beam splitting and chromatic aberration correction
system
In general, two cameras are required to acquire two waveband im­
ages of a tested object simultaneously. The optical path is typically
designed to split the radiant light into two beams using a beam splitter.
The two beams are captured by two high-speed cameras through
different narrow-band filters, to obtain the images of the two wave­
bands, and the chromatic aberration caused by different wavebands can
be eliminated by adjusting the distance between the two high-speed
Fig. 2. Principle schematic of relay and optical path amplification system.
4
Applied Thermal Engineering 211 (2022) 118515
cameras and the beam splitter [24,32]. Although this design is rela­
tively simple and practical, it also has three obvious disadvantages.
Firstly, in this high-speed temperature measurement optical path, two
high-speed cameras are necessary, which significantly increases the cost
of the experiment. Secondly, the beam splitter equally divides the
radiant light into two identical beams, which must reduce the intensity
of the melt pool radiant light, and may reduce the acquisition frame rate
of the high-speed camera. Thirdly, the two cameras need to be fully
synchronized when acquiring images at high speed. Otherwise, the ac­
quired images are difficult to be accurately matched in time, which will
affect the accuracy of temperature measurement. To solve the above
problems, a dual-channel beam splitting and chromatic aberration
correction system based on a single high-speed camera are designed, as
shown in Fig. 3, where the relay and optical path amplification system is
simplified to a convex lens. The optical components in the beam splitting
and chromatic aberration correction system include 805 nm long-pass
dichroic mirror, 805 nm short-pass dichroic mirror, narrow-band filter
1 and narrow-band filter 2, chromatic aberration correction lens 1,
chromatic aberration correction lens 2, right-angle optical adjustment
frame 1, right-angle optical adjustment frame 2, planar mirror 2, planar
mirror 3, and non-rotating movable lens tube. Both the narrow-band
filter 1 and narrow-band filter 2 are 1 in. in diameter and 10 in. in full
width at half maximum. Both the 805 nm long-pass dichroic mirror and
the 805 nm short-pass dichroic mirror are 1 in. in diameter. The planar
mirror 1, planar mirror 2 and planar mirror 3 are all 1 in. in diameter.
Both the chromatic aberration correction lens 1 and the chromatic ab­
erration correction lens 2 are coated with the antireflection coating of
650–1050 nm with a diameter of 1 in., and their focal length is 400 mm.
In the beam splitting and chromatic aberration correction system,
the center wavelength of narrow-band filter 1 is (780 ± 2) nm, the
center wavelength of narrow-band filter 2 is (905 ± 2) nm. The 805 nm
long-pass dichroic mirror can almost completely reflect the light con­
taining the waveband of narrow-band filter 1 in the beam splitting and
chromatic aberration correction system, while almost completely
transmitting the light containing the waveband of narrow-band filter 2.
The side of the 805 nm long-pass dichroic mirror coated with a dichroic
film divides the light received from the relay and optical path amplifi­
cation system into a reflected beam with a waveband less than 805 nm
and a transmitted beam with a waveband greater than 805 nm. The
reflected beam passes through the narrow-band filter 1 and the planar
mirror 2 and enters the camera target surface after transmitting by the
805 nm short-pass dichroic mirror. The transmitted beam passes
through the narrow-band filter 2 and the planar mirror 3 and enters the
camera target surface after reflecting by the 805 nm short-pass dichroic
mirror. The surface of the 805 nm short-pass dichromatic mirror is
coated with dichromatic film towards the high-speed camera.
In the coaxial temperature measurement system developed based on
the principle dual-wavelength thermometry, the radiant light of the melt
pool pass through multiple lenses with different refractive indexes from
the melt pool to the high-speed camera, so it is inevitable that a certain
amount of chromatic aberration is generated, and the image of the dual-
waveband radiant light cannot be focused on the target surface of the
high-speed camera at the same time. Therefore, it is necessary to correct
the dual-waveband chromatic aberration. The chromatic aberration
H. Ma et al.
Fig. 3. Schematic of beam splitting and chromatic aberration correction system with a single camera.
correction lens 1 and chromatic aberration correction lens 2 in the beam
splitting and chromatic aberration correction system correct the dual-
waveband chromatic aberration. After ignoring the reflection and
transmission, the simplified dual-waveband optical path chromatic ab­
erration correction schematic is shown in Fig. 4. Both the chromatic
aberration correction lens 1 and the chromatic aberration correction
lens 2 are achromatic double cemented convex lenses with a focal length
of 400 mm. The position of the chromatic aberration correction lens 2
remains unchanged, while the position of the chromatic aberration
correction lens 1 installed in the non-rotating movable lens tube can be
moved. The maximum movement range of the non-rotating movable
lens tube is 5 mm, and the range of movement per rotation is 0.25 mm,
so the left and right sub-images are all focused on the target surface of
the high-speed camera by fine-tuning the chromatic aberration correc­
tion lens 1. The results before and after the chromatic aberration
correction are shown in Fig. 5.
The supplementary explanation of the beam splitting and chromatic
aberration correction system shown in Fig. 3 is as follows:
(1). The positions of the 805 nm long-pass dichroic mirror and the
805 nm short-pass dichroic mirror can be interchanged, and then
the side coated with the dichroic film is adjusted. In addition, two
identical 805 nm long-pass dichroic mirrors or 805 nm short-pass
dichroic mirror can also be used for beam splitting, and the angle
between the light entering and exiting the beam splitting and the
Fig. 4. Schematic of dual-waveband optical path chromatic aberration correction.
5
Applied Thermal Engineering 211 (2022) 118515
beam splitting and chromatic aberration correction system is
90◦ 。
(2). The dual-wavelength light is reflected by the dichroic mirror and
the planar mirror, so the left and right sub-images of the object
are in a translational relationship.
(3). When measuring temperature on the LPBF equipment, there is no
need to add a light barrier between the two beams of light emitted
from the beam splitting and chromatic aberration correction
system, because the right-angle optical adjustment frame 1 and
the right-angle optical adjustment frame 2 can adjust the imaging
position of the melt pool on the target surface of the high-speed
camera, as long as the left and right sub-images do not overlap,
there is no interference between the two beams.
2.2.4. Assembly of coaxial temperature measurement system
The key to assembling the coaxial temperature measurement system
is to assemble the beam splitting and chromatic aberration correction
system first. To assemble all the components in the beam splitting and
chromatic aberration correction system, the 3D model of the device is
designed in Creo software. After printing the 3D model with PLA wire,
the developed beam splitting and chromatic aberration correction sys­
tem with a size of 150 mm × 116 mm × 66 mm is shown in Fig. 6. The
narrow-band filter 1 and the narrow-band filter 2 are installed in a one-
inch diameter lens barrel, and the lens barrel is fixed on a right-angle
optical adjustment frame through a threaded connection. The chro­
matic aberration correction lens 1 and the chromatic aberration
H. Ma et al.
Fig. 5. Dual-waveband image before and after chromatic aberration correction.
correction lens 2 are respectively installed in a non-rotating movable
lens tube and a one-inch diameter lens barrel and are also fixed on a
right-angle optical adjustment frame through a threaded connection.
The model of the beam splitting and chromatic aberration correction
Fig. 6. Developed beam splitting and chromatic aberration correction system.
Fig. 7. Developed coaxial temperature measurement system with a single high-speed camera.
6
Applied Thermal Engineering 211 (2022) 118515
system is divided into upper and lower parts, and is compact and
convenient to adjust.
The developed coaxial temperature measurement system is shown in
Fig. 7, which mainly includes the beam splitting and chromatic aber­
ration correction system, the relay and optical path amplification sys­
tem, the high-speed camera, and a replaceable telephoto microscope
lens (or a lens barrel).
2.3. Dual-waveband image-matching method with sub-pixel accuracy
The image collected by the high-speed camera can be divided into
left and right sub-images. According to the temperature calculation
formula (1), the temperature of a region can be obtained only by
calculating the temperature of each pixel unit in the region. Only by
obtaining the gray value of the pixel point corresponding to a point in
the dual-waveband image can the temperature of the point be calcu­
lated. This means that before using the dual-wavelength thermometry
principle to calculate the temperature field, it is necessary to match the
two sub-images, and the accuracy of the dual-waveband image matching
directly affects the accuracy of the temperature calculation. Therefore, a
dual-waveband image-matching method with sub-pixel accuracy based
on speckle correlation is developed herein.
The speckle calibration plate is filled with easy-to-identify black and
white speckles, and the positional correspondence between the two sub-
images of the speckle calibration plate at the same position as the object
to be measured is calculated, and the positional correspondence be­
tween the two sub-images of the object can be obtained. This image
position calibration method is equivalent to using a speckle calibration
plate to indirectly provide a large number of position reference points
for the surface of the object, paving the way for the subsequent accurate
matching of dual-waveband image. To ensure the validity of the cali­
bration, after the image position calibration is completed, the positions
H. Ma et al. Applied Thermal Engineering 211 (2022) 118515

of the relay and optical path amplification system, spectroscopic and

∑
M
chromatic aberration correction system, high-speed camera, and other Cf ,g (→
p )=
equipment will not change. x=− M
The specific process of the dual-waveband image-matching method ∑
M
f (x, y) − fm
′
g(x ,y ) − gm
′

with sub-pixel accuracy as shown in Fig. 8 is as follows: × [√̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅ − √̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅ ]2

y=− M ∑M ∑M ∑M ∑M
[f (x,y) − fm ]2 [g(x′ ,y′ ) − gm ]2
(1). After setting up the coaxial temperature measurement system on x=− M y=− M x=− M y=− M

the LPBF equipment, put the speckle calibration plate close to the (3)
surface of the object to be measured, focus on the high-speed
camera and adjust the appropriate exposure time, and use the where, f(x, y) is the gray level of the coordinates of point (x, y)
xenon lamp to fill the light to collect a dual-waveband image as in Fig. 8 (b), g(x , y ) is the gray level of the corresponding point (x , y )
′ ′ ′ ′

∑ M ∑ M 2
shown in Fig. 8 (a). in Fig. 8 (c),fm = 1
(2M+1)2 x=− M y=− M [f(x, y)] ,gm =
(2). Cover the left and right sides of the image with white and save 1
∑ M ∑ M 2
y=− M [g(x , y )] , fm and gm are the average gray levels of
′ ′
x=− M
them as Fig. 8 (b) and Fig. 8 (c). (2M+1)2

(3). Divide Fig. 8 (b) into n (n is a positive integer) sub-areas evenly,
and then find the corresponding sub-area of each sub-area of
Fig. 8 (b) in Fig. 8 (c) according to the correlation function for­
mula (3). Calculate the correlation coefficients Cf ,g (→
p ) between
the sub-areas of Fig. 8 (b) and Fig. 8 (c). The sub-area of Fig. 8 (c)
with the smallest correlation coefficient corresponds to the sub-
area of Fig. 8 (b). The correlation function formula is as follows:
two image sub-area, respectively, and → p is the vector of the deformation
parameters to be determined.
In the image-matching process, multiple image interpolation algo­
rithms including Newton-Rapson algorithm, genetic algorithm, neural
network algorithm, sub-pixel grayscale interpolation method [33] are
used in the digital image correlation (DIC), which can increase the
matching accuracy to 0.005 to 0.1 pixels, and the sub-pixel accuracy
matching of the dual-waveband image can also be realized.

Fig. 8. Specific process of dual-waveband image-matching method, (a) Dual-waveband image of speckle calibration plate, (b) Left sub-area, (c) Right sub-area, (d)
Relative displacement field in × direction, (e) Relative displacement field in y direction.

7
H. Ma et al. Applied Thermal Engineering 211 (2022) 118515

The relative displacement field of Fig. 8 (b) and Fig. 8 (c) is shown in The specific process of the overall parameters calibration and opti­
Fig. 8 (d) and Fig. 8 (e), where Fig. 8 (d) is the relative displacement field mization method is as follows:
in the x direction, and Fig. 8 (e) is the relative displacement field in the y
direction. Although the left and right images are in a translational (1). Dual-waveband image matching: Fig. 9 shows the temperature
relationship in theory, the displacements of different pixels are not the measurement system in the calibration stage. The speckle cali­
same in practice. The errors caused by the rotation and chromatic ab­ bration plate and the black body furnace are set on the same
erration of the left and right sub-images can be eliminated by matching vertical plane, and the left and right sub-images are matched
the left and right images. through the speckle image.
(2). Heating black body furnace: Determine the temperature range
that needs to be calibrated, and select multiple temperatures in
2.4. Calibration and optimization method of overall parameters
this range as a reference. Every time the temperature of the
blackbody furnace reaches the reference value, the high-speed
The proportional coefficient K in formula (1) is mainly affected by
camera collects a dual-waveband image, while the temperature
the spectral response intensity of the high-speed camera, the trans­
of the standard photoelectric thermometer is recorded. Fig. 10 is
mittance and reflectivity of the optical components, the assembly of the
a dual-waveband image, in which the area-λ1 and area-λ2 are all
optical components, the spectral absorptivity of the atmosphere and the
divided into the furnace bottom area and the furnace wall area.
environment, so the value or distribution of the proportional coefficient
During the calibration process, only the furnace bottom area is
needs to be calibrated through experiments. Besides, in the principle of
calibrated, so the furnace wall area does not affect the calibration
dual-wavelength thermometry, the relationship between the gray ratio
accuracy.
of the two wavelengths and the temperature needs to be calibrated.
(3). Multi-parameter fitting calibration: The formula (1) is isomor­
However, it is difficult to find a filter that can only pass a single wave­
phically deformed into
length, and it will not only reduce the signal strength of high-speed ( )
cameras but also may bring greater noise effects, so the wavelength hc 1 1
λ1 − λ2
range of the filter should be selected reasonably. In addition, the center
k
exp G(x,y)
(4)
T(x,y) 2
=K
wavelength of the filter is often not a certain value, but a range value. (
λ2
)5
G(x,y)
Hence, when calculating the temperature, the specific values of λ1 and λ2
1
λ1

need to be reasonably selected within the center wavelength range of the

filter, otherwise it may cause larger measurement errors. Therefore, an Suppose
overall parameters calibration method is proposed, and combined with hc
(
1 1
)
the system parameter optimization method, the distribution of the three exp
k λ1 − λ2

parameters K, λ1 and λ2 can be obtained, which improves the tempera­ (5)

T(x,y)
(x, y) = ( )5
ture measurement accuracy.
λ2
λ1
A high-temperature blackbody furnace and a standard photoelectric
pyrometer are used in the calibration experiment of the overall pa­ G(x,y)
rameters. The emissivity of the high-temperature blackbody furnace is x(x, y) = 2
(x,y)
(6)
G1
greater than 0.99, and the temperature measurement error is about
0.1℃. The temperature measurement accuracy of the standard photo­ Then y = Kx. For a single pixel, set the initial values λ1 and λ2 to 780 nm
electric pyrometer can reach 0.1℃. Both the high-temperature black­ and 905 nm, respectively, calculate the yi and xi corresponding to all
body furnace and the standard photoelectric pyrometer have high temperature points (i is the number of reference temperature), and use
accuracy and meet the needs of calibration. Therefore, the developed the least square method [34] to fit yi and xi into the form of y = Kx. The
coaxial temperature measurement system for high-speed temperature linear correlation coefficient isr (0 < r⩽1), and then the Newton’s
measurement is calibrated with the value of the center point of the black method [35,36] is used to iteratively update the values of λ1 and λ2
body furnace bottom measured by the standard photoelectric pyrometer within the center wavelength range. The least square method has the
as the standard.

Fig. 9. Calibration scene of development coaxial temperature measurement system.

8
H. Ma et al.
Fig. 10. Dual-waveband image.
characteristic of excellent parameter estimation, and the Newton’s
method has the characteristic of fast convergence. Therefore, the New­
ton’s method based on the least square method has good convergence
performance, and its positioning accuracy is obviously better than the
least square method. Given the criterion α and criterionβ (0 < β < 1),
only when b⩽α andr⩽β , the iteration stops, and the corresponding K, λ1
and λ2 are the optimal values of the fitting. The K, λ1 and λ2 of all the
remaining pixels are obtained by the same method. The result of the
overall parameter calibration is shown in Fig. 11, where K gradually
increases from left to right, and the average value of K is about 4.05. It is
worth noting that the gray value at the bottom of the furnace in Fig. 10
should be the same under ideal conditions, but because the trans­
mittance and reflectivity of the light with different wavelengths and
different direction passing through the optical components are different,
the gray values of λ1 and λ2 in the furnace bottom area also present a
regular distribution. The closer to the image center line, the more slowly
the gray values of area-λ1 and area-λ2 increase. Therefore, the calculated
K also present a regular distribution. In addition, the physical meaning
of λ1 and λ2 is the optimal wavelength value, which is determined by all
optical components, and does not represent the distribution of the center
wavelength of the filter.
The fitted straight line y = K x +b of a pixel is shown in Fig. 12 (a),
where K = 4.05,b < 10− 6 , λ1 = 780.38 nm, λ2 = 904.89 nm, indicating
that the fitted straight line has a good linear correlation coefficient. In
Fig. 11. Calibration result of (a) Proportional coefficient K, (b) Parameterλ1 , (c) Parameterλ2 .
9
Applied Thermal Engineering 211 (2022) 118515
order to more intuitively display the statistical data of the actual cali­
bration results of each pixel, the coefficient of determination of each
pixel after linear fitting is calculated, as shown in Fig. 12 (b). The value
range of the coefficient of determination is between 0 and 1. The closer it
is to 1, the better the linear fitting. The range of the coefficient of
determination is 0.9752–0.9975, which proves the accuracy of fitting
results and the accuracy of iterative results of parameters K, λ1 andλ2 .
2.5. Validation experiment
After calibrating and optimizing the distribution of the overall
parameter, a validation experiment is carried out at the National In­
stitute of Metrology of China. Comparing the temperature measurement
results of the developed coaxial temperature measurement system with
the standard photoelectric pyrometer, the error is less than 1%. The
third-party certificate issued by the National Institute of Metrology of
China is shown in the appendix.
The measurement results of the validation experiment are shown in
Fig. 13. The standard temperature is measured by the standard photo­
electric pyrometer, and the measurement temperature is measured by
the developed coaxial temperature measurement system. Although only
some temperatures between 1000 ℃ and 1200 ℃ have been verified,
according to formula (4), the accuracy of dual-wavelength thermometry
is mainly related to the proportional coefficient K. According to the
H. Ma et al.
Fig. 12. Fitting straight line of a pixel’ K value (a) and coefficient of determination of each pixel after linear fitting (b).
Fig. 13. Measurement results of validation experiment.
influencing factors of the proportional coefficient K, it can be seen that
within the range of 1000 K to 5000 K, reasonably adjust the camera
exposure time so that the brightness of the melt pool is as high as
possible but not more than 4095, and the measurement accuracy will not
be reduced. Therefore, the accuracy of the developed coaxial tempera­
ture measurement system using a single camera for high-speed tem­
perature measurement meets the requirements of online measurement
of the melt pool temperature field.
3. Experimental results and analysis
3.1. Integration of coaxial temperature measurement system and LPBF
equipment
To realize the online in-situ measurement of the melt pool temper­
ature, the coaxial temperature measurement system is integrated into
the LPBF equipment consisting of a laser, a workbench, and a powder
feeding device. The main parameters of the LPBF equipment are as
10
Applied Thermal Engineering 211 (2022) 118515
follows: the model is HK M125, the laser center wavelength is 1070 nm,
the maximum molded part size is 125 mm × 125 mm × 125 mm, the
distance between the molding plane and the focusing lens is 500 mm, the
scanning galvanometer system is Hurry Scan, and the control system is
the independently developed HUST 3DP software. The material used in
the experiment is 316L stainless steel metal powder with a melting point
of 1371–1398 ℃. As shown in Fig. 14, the integrated melt pool tem­
perature measurement equipment mainly includes an experimental
platform, the relay and optical path amplification system, the beam
splitting and chromatic aberration correction system, the high-speed
camera, and a computer with a gigabit network port.
The relay and optical path amplification system and the beam
splitting and chromatic aberration correction system have been intro­
duced in section 2.2. The model of the high-speed camera is FASTCAM
NOVA S12, which achieves a 12,800 FPS acquisition speed at full res­
olution, provides a 12-bit gray depth range, has a memory of 64 GB, has
an image resolution of 1024 pixels × 1024 pixels, uses a square chip
with a single-pixel size of 20 × 20 µm, and has a monochrome sensitivity
H. Ma et al.
Fig. 14. Developed melt pool temperature measurement equipment.
of ISO64000.
It should be noted that the difference between the coaxial tempera­
ture measurement system in the experiment and the overall parameters
calibration process is that a telephoto microscope lens is added to the
optical path during the overall parameters calibration process. In addi­
tion, the radiant light of the melt pool in the experiment pass through
the lens (focusing lens, beam expander in the dynamic focus module) on
the LPBF equipment, and the radiant light of the black body furnace
during the calibration process directly enter the 1000 nm long-pass
dichroic mirror. Since in the dual-wavelength thermometry, the tem­
perature is only related to the gray ratio of the dual-waveband, the light
intensity of the dual-waveband is also synchronized after passing
through the lens. Therefore, the accuracy of temperature calibration is
still valid.
In the LPBF process, the main factors that affect the quality of the
printed part are the laser power, scanning speed, scanning strategy,
hatch spacing, powder layer thickness. In this experiment, the thickness
of the powder layer is 50 μm, the hatch spacing is 120 μm, the scanning
strategy is raster scanning, and the scanning direction is unidirectional
scanning.
Fig.15. Printing modes of (a) Single-line printing, (b) Single-layer printing, (c) Multi-layer printing.
11
Applied Thermal Engineering 211 (2022) 118515
3.2. Measurement and analysis of melt pool characteristics
As shown in Fig. 15, this experiment designed three different print­
ing modes: single-line printing, single-layer printing, and multi-layer
printing. The single-line printing refers to the process in which the
laser prints only once along with a line on the powder bed surface; the
single-layer printing refers to the process of spreading powder once and
continuously printing on this layer; the multi-layer printing refers to the
process of multiple single-layer printing by continuous spreading pow­
der. Analyzing the temperature distribution changes of the melt pool
under these three printing modes is beneficial to provide a basis for
optimizing process parameters and improving printing quality.
3.2.1. Single-line printing process results and analysis
The single-line printing is the basic unit in the continuous printing
process, and measuring the temperature distribution of the melt pool in
the single-line printing process is significant for understanding the entire
printing process.
In this experiment, a variety of different process parameters are
designed for single-line printing. Since the melting point of 316L
stainless steel is in the range of 1371–1398 ℃, the area with a tem­
perature higher than 1672 K in the temperature field is regarded as the
melt pool. Fig. 15(a) is the single-line printing result, each single-line
length is about 22 mm, and the scanning direction is from left to right.
Table 1 shows the parameters of different single-line printing.
Fig. 16 and Fig. 17 respectively show the evolution process of the
melt pool temperature field distribution and the melt pool profile dis­
tribution over time, and the evolution of the average temperature, peak
temperature, and profile area of the melt pool overtime when the laser
power is 320 W, the scanning speed is 650 mm/s, and the high-speed
camera’s acquisition frame rate is 3000FPS. It is worth noting that the
profile of melt pool is calculated by temperature gradient. After the melt
pool temperature field is obtained, combined with the scanning speed,
the preset printing path and the acquisition frame rate of the camera, the
three-dimensional position coordinates of the melt pool can be obtained.
The parameters of NO.1 single-line printing is one of the best printing
parameters for printing stainless steel, and the best printing parameters
are often related to the printing material and the printing shape. The
evolution process of the melt pool can be divided into three stages:
formation stage (0 ms to 0.33 ms), stabilization stage (0.33 ms to 35 ms),
and cooling stage (35 ms to 35.33 ms).
Table 1
Parameters of different single-line printing.
NO. Laser power Scanning speed Linear energy density
1 320 W 650 mm/s 492.3 J/m
2 320 W 300 mm/s 1066.7 J/m
3 240 W 300 mm/s 800.0 J/m
H. Ma et al.
Fig. 16. Evolution of (a) temperature field and (b) profile of melt pool with time in the process of NO.1 single-line printing.
Fig. 17. Evolution of average temperature, peak temperature, and profile area of melt pool with time in the process of NO.1 single-line printing.
(1). Formation stage. The time of the first melt pool dual-waveband
image captured by the camera is considered as t = 0 ms. Due to
the limitation of the acquisition frame rate, only one temperature
field in the process of melt pool formation can be obtained at the
formation stage. The tail profile of the melt pool has not been
formed at 0 ms, and the laser spot is located at x = 0.73 mm.
According to the scanning distance of laser spot in 0.33 ms is
214.5 µm, it can be inferred that the initial position of the laser
spot is between x = 0.51 mm and x = 0.73 mm. With the rapid
increase of the temperature and area of the melt pool, the width
of the melt pool reaches 400 µm, the average temperature
changing rate reaches 5315 K/ms, and the peak temperature
changing rate reaches 7758 K/ms.
(2). Stabilization stage. The peak temperature, average temperature,
and area of the melt pool vary reposefully at the stabilization
stage. The peak temperature and average temperature of the melt
pool generally show a slow rising trend, and the average rising
rate is 7.6 K/ms and 3.3 K/ms, respectively. The area of the melt
pool generally shows a slow downward trend. At the end of
printing, the area of the melt pool is slightly reduced, because the
12
Applied Thermal Engineering 211 (2022) 118515
thickness of the spreading powder at the end of the single line is
slightly larger than that at the beginning, and the temperature is
easier to transfer downward. The average temperature of the melt
pool varies steadily between 2000 K and 2150 K, and its
maximum temperature changing rate is 610 K/ms. The peak
temperature of the melt pool varies between 2800 and 3090 K,
and its maximum temperature changing rate is 1790 K/ms. The
peak temperature of the melt pool fluctuates more violently than
the average temperature, which indicates that the peak temper­
ature of the molten pool is more easily affected by other factors.
(3). Cooling stage. The corresponding temperature field of the melt
pool is not obtained at the cooling stage, which is mainly caused
by two reasons. On the one hand, the high-speed camera’s
acquisition frame rate in this experiment is low, and only one
image is collected every 0.33 ms. On the other hand, after the
single-line printing, the laser spot will be instantly turned off and
quickly return to the origin, and the substrate lacks heat accu­
mulation during single-line printing [23,24], which will lead to
an excessively fast cooling rate of the melt pool temperature.
H. Ma et al. Applied Thermal Engineering 211 (2022) 118515

Fig. 18. Evolution of temperature field of melt pool with time in the process of NO.2 single-line printing.

Fig. 19. Evolution of average temperature, peak temperature, and profile area of melt pool with time in the process of NO.2 single-line printing.

Fig. 18 and Fig. 19 respectively show the evolution process of the
melt pool temperature field distribution over time and the evolution of
the average temperature, peak temperature, and profile area of the melt
pool overtime when the laser power is 320 W, the scanning speed is 300
mm/s, and the high-speed camera’s acquisition frame rate is 4000FPS.
The time of the first melt pool dual-waveband image captured by the
camera is considered as t = 0 ms. The evolution process of the melt pool
can also be divided into three stages: formation stage (0 ms to 0.25 ms),
stabilization stage (0.25 ms to 67.25 ms), and cooling stage. With the
rapid increase of the temperature and area of the melt pool at the

13
H. Ma et al.
formation stage, the width of the melt pool reaches 400 µm, the average
temperature reaches 2091 K, the peak temperature reaches 2679 K, the
average temperature changing rate reaches 7164 K/ms, and the peak
temperature changing rate reaches 9516 K/ms. The average tempera­
ture of the melt pool at the stabilization stage varies between 2100 K and
2400 K, and its maximum temperature changing rate is 1200 K/ms. The
peak temperature of the melt pool at the stabilization stage varies be­
tween 2500 K and 3300 K, and its maximum temperature changing rate
is 4400 K/ms. As shown in Fig. 18, it is not that the edge solidifies first
and the area where the high-temperature center is located solidifies
later, which is slightly different from the cooling rule in Fig. 16. Through
analysis and inference, this phenomenon is related to the violent heat
exchange inside the melt pool. As in the cooling stage of NO.1 single-line
printing, no temperature field of the melt pool at the cooling stage is
captured.
Fig. 20, and Fig. 21 respectively show the evolution process of the
melt pool temperature field distribution over time and the evolution of
the average temperature, peak temperature, and profile area of the melt
pool overtime when the laser power is 240 W, the scanning speed is 300
mm/s, and the high-speed camera’s acquisition frame rate is 3000FPS.
The time of the first melt pool dual-waveband image captured by the
camera is considered as t = 0 ms. The evolution process of the melt pool
can still be divided into three stages: formation stage (0 ms to 0.33 ms),
stabilization stage (0.33 ms to 66.66 ms), and cooling stage (66.66 ms to
Fig. 20. Evolution of temperature field of melt pool with time in the process of NO.3 single-line printing.
14
Applied Thermal Engineering 211 (2022) 118515
67.33 ms). With the rapid increase of the temperature and area of the
melt pool, the width of the melt pool at the formation stage reaches 400
µm, the average temperature changing rate reaches 5194 K/ms, and the
peak temperature changing rate reaches 7221 K/ms. The average tem­
perature of the melt pool varies between 2000 K and 2200 K, and its
maximum temperature changing rate is 782 K/ms. The peak tempera­
ture of the melt pool at the stabilization stage varies between 2600 K and
3200 K, and its maximum temperature changing rate is 2273 K/ms.
During the cooling stage, the size of the melt pool decreases rapidly, and
the profile is only half of that in the stabilization state.
The linear energy density in Table 1 is a parameter that measures the
comprehensive influence of the laser power and scanning speed on the
printed parts. Assuming that the linear energy density is represented
byL, L it can be expressed as.
P
L= (7)
v
where p is the laser power, and v is the scanning speed.
In the LPBF process, the main factors that affect the quality of the
printed part are the laser power, scanning speed, scanning strategy,
hatch spacing, powder layer thickness. However, in the single-line
printing process, the scanning strategy and the hatch spacing don’t
need to be considered, and the powder layer thickness is a fixed value.
Therefore, the linear energy density can be used to measure the heat
H. Ma et al. Applied Thermal Engineering 211 (2022) 118515

Fig. 21. Evolution of average temperature, peak temperature, and profile area of melt pool with time in the process of NO.3 single-line printing.

Fig. 22. Evolution of the average temperature of the melt pool with time under different linear energy densities.

input rate of the laser energy in the single-line printing process.
In the single-line printing process, the evolution of the average
temperature of the melt pool with time under different linear energy
densities is shown in Fig. 22. In terms of the distribution range of tem­
perature, when the linear energy density is 492.3 J/m, the average
temperature is mainly distributed between 2000 K and 2150 K; when the
linear energy density is 800 J/m, the average temperature is mainly
distributed between 2000 K and 2200 K; when the linear energy density
is 1066.7 J/m, the average temperature is mainly distributed between
2100 K and 2400 K. The higher the linear energy density, the more
energy input per unit time of the melt pool, and the higher the average
temperature. The fluctuation is the smallest when the linear energy
density is 492.3 J/m, and its printing parameters is one of the best
printing parameters of stainless steel. Inappropriate printing parameters
will bring about the fluctuation of melt pool temperature field, which
may cause the formation of undesirable microstructure and even the
emergence of defects [17–19,37–38].
The evolution of the peak temperature of the melt pool with time
under different linear energy densities is shown in Fig. 23. In terms of
the distribution range of temperature, when the linear energy density is

15
H. Ma et al. Applied Thermal Engineering 211 (2022) 118515

Fig. 23. Evolution of peak temperature of the melt pool with time under different linear energy densities.

492.3 J/m, the peak temperature is mainly distributed between 2800 K
and 3090 K; when the linear energy density is 800 J/m, the peak tem­
perature is mainly distributed between 2600 K and 3200 K; when the
linear energy density is 1066.7 J/m, the peak temperature is mainly
distributed between 2500 K and 3300 K. Similar to the evolution of
average temperature, the higher the linear energy density, the higher the
peak temperature, and the fluctuation is the smallest when the linear
energy density is 492.3 J/m.
When the laser is concentrated on the measuring point, the surface
temperature of the melt pool exceeds the normal boiling point temper­
ature of the material, and the higher the linear energy density, the more
peak temperatures exceed the boiling point (3090 K) of stainless steel.
Semak et al. [39,40] and Ki et al. [41,42] showed that the temperature of
the melt surface would not be limited to the normal boiling point of the
material due to the backwash pressure of the melt surface. Semak et al.
[40] predicted that the peak temperature of iron was 4000 K, far higher

Fig. 24. Evolution of temperature field of melt pool with time in the process of single-layer printing.

16
H. Ma et al.
than the normal boiling point (3134 K). Ki et al. [42] predicted that
when the recoil pressure was 200–600 kpa, the laser welding tempera­
ture of the steel plate was 500–900 K higher than the normal boiling
point. In this study, when linear energy density was 1066.7 J/m, the
temperature was about 400 K above the boiling point at 24 ms. In this
study, when linear energy density is 1066.7 J /m, the temperature is
about 400 K above the boiling point at 24 ms, which is consistent with
the experimental research in the above literature.
3.2.2. Single-layer printing process results and analysis
Fig. 15 (b) shows the single-layer printed part with a size of 20 mm ×
20 mm when the laser power is 320 W, the scanning speed is 650 mm/s,
and the high-speed camera’s acquisition frame rate is 5000 FPS. As
shown in Fig. 15 (b), the raster scanning strategy is inclined upward, and
only the first two single lines are calculated and analyzed.
In the single-layer printing process, the evolution process of the
temperature field distribution of the first two single-line melt pools over
time is shown in Fig. 24. The time of the first melt pool dual-waveband
image captured by the camera is considered as t = 0 ms.The printing
time of the first single line is about 1.2 ms, and the volution process of
the melt pool can be divided into three stages: formation stage (0 ms to
0.6 ms), stabilization stage (0.6 ms to 1 ms), and cooling stage (1 ms to
1.2 ms). The peak temperature of the melt pool exceeded 3090 K during
the stabilization stage. After the laser spot prints the first single line, it
returns to the initial position of the second single line and starts printing.
The printing time of the second single line is about 2 ms, and the evo­
lution process of the melt pool can be divided into three stages: forma­
tion stage (2 ms to 2.6 ms), stabilization stage (2.6 ms to 3.8 ms), and
cooling stage (3.8 ms to 4 ms).
3.2.3. Multi-layer printing process results and analysis
Fig. 15 (c) shows the multi-layer printed part with a size of 7 mm × 7
mm × 7 mm when the laser power is 320 W, the scanning speed is 650
mm/s, and the high-speed camera’s acquisition frame rate is 10,000
Fig. 25. Evolution of temperature field of melt pool with time in the process of multi-layer printing.
17
Applied Thermal Engineering 211 (2022) 118515
FPS. A total of 140 layers are printed in this process, and a single line in
the middle of the 120th layer is selected for calculation and analysis.
Fig. 25 shows the evolution of the melt pool temperature field from
the formation stage (0 ms to 0.4 ms) to the stabilization stage (0.4 ms to
3 ms) in the multi-layer printing process. The time of the first melt pool
dual-waveband image captured by the camera is considered as t = 0 ms.
The profile of the melt pool at the formation stage is approximatively
stable, and the temperature of the melt pool rises steadily. There is al­
ways an area higher than 3090 K in the high-temperature center of the
melt pool during the stabilization stage, which is caused by the recoil
pressure. Laser selective melting is a process that includes complex
physical and chemical phenomena such as heat transfer, mass transfer,
convection, radiation, evaporation, melting, and solidification. The
printing process is accompanied by very light vibrations due to water
cooling, and the printing power is not in an ideal stable state, so the
high-temperature center is also in constant change. The melt pool in the
stable stage has a long tail, and the overall temperature is higher than
the temperature field distribution of the NO.1 single-line printing under
the same parameters. The reason for the above phenomenon is that the
strong heat accumulation in the last stage of multi-layer printing leads to
a higher temperature in the high-temperature center, a slower cooling
rate of the melt pool, and an excellent formation of the solidification
structure.
3.2.4. Temperature gradient and cooling rate results and analysis under
different printing modes
During the printing process, the profile and temperature field of the
melt pool is constantly changing with time, as do the temperature
gradient and cooling rate. Fig. 26 shows the temperature and distance
curves of the melt pool at the stabilization stage under different printing
modes, where the abscissa represents the centerline distribution of the
melt pool with the laser center as the origin and the ordinate represents
the corresponding temperature. It can be seen from Fig. 26 that the
temperature gradient at the head of the melt pool is greater than the
H. Ma et al.
Fig. 26. Temperature distribution along centerline of melt pool in scanning direction.
temperature gradient at the tail, so the peak temperature gradients are
all located at the head of the molten pool. The calculation shows that the
peak temperature gradient in front of the head in the three printing
modes ranges from 10 K/µm to 20 K/µm. Because the tail of the melt
pool is located in the non-laser heating zone, the slope of the tempera­
ture and distance curve at the tail can be used to calculate the cooling
rate of the melt pool. By calculation, the range of the slope of the straight
line is 1.5–3 K/µm, so according to the scanning speed, the average
cooling rate of the melt pool is approximately 0.8–2 K/µs, and the
cooling rate in the multi-layer printing process is about 1 K/µs.
The analysis shows that the length of the melt pool in the single-line
printing and the single-layer printing is less than that in multi-layer
printing, which is mainly caused by the difference in heat
18
Applied Thermal Engineering 211 (2022) 118515
accumulation, printing time, and scanning direction. The greater the
amount of heat accumulation during the printing process, the longer its
cooling time and the longer the length of the melt pool. In addition, the
laser does not print along the horizontal direction when printing, and
the scanning direction of different printing modes is different. Fig. 26 is
the temperature distribution along the centerline of the melt pool in the
scanning direction, so the scanning direction will also affect the length
of the melt pool.
There have been several studies on the cooling rate of the melt pool
in the LPBF process. Hooper et al. [32] measured the temperature data of
the centerline of the melt pool with Ti6Al4V material at different
printing positions on the 142nd layer. The results show that the peak
temperature gradient at different positions in the LPBF process ranges
H. Ma et al.
from 5 K/µm to 20 K/µm, the average cooling rate at the tail of the melt
pool is about 1.5 K/µs, and the peak cooling rate during the melt pool
cooling stage is about 4 K /µs. In addition, they observed a flat area with
a length of about 0.4–0.6 mm in different printing positions, while the
flat area with a length of about 0.5 mm can be observed in the multi-
layer printing in this paper, as shown in Fig. 27. Lee et al. [43] simu­
lated the evolution of the melt pool temperature field with time during
the single-layer printing of the IN718 alloy material in the LPBF process.
The analysis showed that the temperature gradient at the tail of the melt
pool was about 3 K/µm, and the temperature gradient at the edge of the
melt pool was about 7.88 ~ 18.4 K/µm. Compared with the above re­
searches, the temperature gradient and cooling rate calculated in this
paper have higher reliability.
3.2.5. Temperature field and profile results and analysis under different
printing modes
Fig. 27 (a) shows the temperature field of the melt pool at the sta­
bilization stage under different printing modes. The similarity of the
temperature field of these melt pools is that there is a high-temperature
center that coincides with the center of the laser at the center of the melt
pool head, the temperature gradually decreases outward along the high-
temperature center, and the temperature gradient in front of the melt
pool head is greater than that at the tail of the melt pool.
The difference in the temperature field of these melt pools is that the
distribution of temperature field and peak temperature are different
under different printing modes. In the single-line printing, the peak
temperature of the melt pool is mainly related to the linear energy
density. The greater the linear energy density of the melt pool, the
greater the peak temperature. Therefore, the peak temperature of the
NO.2 single-line printing is the largest, and the NO.1 single-line printing
is the smallest. The printing parameters of the single-layer printing and
the single-line printing are the same, but the peak temperature in the
single-layer printing is significantly higher than that of the single-pass
printing. The main reason is that during the single-layer printing, the
hatch spacing is 120 µm, and the size of the molten pool is about 400 µm,
resulting in more heat exchange between two adjacent single lines. The
biggest difference between the multi-layer printing, the single-line
printing and the single-layer printing is that the tail of the melt pool is
longer in multi-layer printing. The main reason is that more heat ex­
change and accumulation will occur between different layers and be­
tween different single lines in the multi-layer printing process, resulting
in more cooling time and longer cooling distance at the tail of the melt
Fig. 27. Temperature field (a) and profile shape and size of melt pool at stabilization stage under different printing modes.
19
Applied Thermal Engineering 211 (2022) 118515
pool.
Fig. 27 (b) shows the shape and size of the melt pool profile at the
stabilization stage under different printing modes. It can be seen from
Fig. 27 (b) that the width of the melt pool under different printing modes
is about 400 µm, and the shape is similar to an ellipse. The length of the
melt pool in single-line printing and single-layer printing is about 500
µm, while the length of the melt pool in multi-layer printing is about
1000 µm, which is mainly caused by the slow cooling rate of the tail of
the melt pool in multi-layer printing. The position of the molten pool
profile is also different under different printing modes. The different
position of the melt pool on the printing plane affects the angle at which
the radiant light enters the temperature measurement system, which
changes the position focused on the target surface of the high-speed
camera. The instability of the laser will also have a certain impact on
the position of the melt pool profile.
4. Conclusions
In this study, the online in-situ monitoring of the melt pool tem­
perature in LPBF processes was investigated by using a developed co­
axial temperature measurement system. A dual-waveband image-
matching method with sub-pixel accuracy, and an overall parameter
calibration and optimization method are proposed to improve the
temperature measurement accuracy. The experimental results of the
three printing modes of single-line, single-layer, and multi-layer printing
are compared and analyzed. The following conclusions can be drawn
from this study:
(1). The measurement error of the developed coaxial temperature
measurement system is less than 1%, which is validated by a
high-temperature blackbody furnace and a standard photoelec­
tric pyrometer.
(2). The high acquisition frame rate of the high-speed camera can
provide online in-situ temperature measurement of the melt pool.
(3). The melt pool characteristics including the temperature distri­
bution, profile, temperature gradient, and cooling rate under the
different printing are measured, and the experimental results are
proven to be reliable. The optimized parameters in the single-line
printing mode minimize the fluctuation of melt pool temperature
and are more favourable to the formation of high-quality parts.
The higher the linear energy density in the single-line printing
mode, the higher the average temperature and peak temperature
H. Ma et al.
of the melt pool. The heat accumulation in multi-layer printing
mode is strong, resulting in the slow cooling rate of the melt pool,
which indicates that there are more grain types conducive to the
enhancement of mechanical properties.
(4). This study mainly measures the melt pool temperature field
characteristics and evolution process, but the relationship be­
tween the temperature field characteristics and the defect for­
mation mechanism of the printed part has not been established.
Using the neural network to correlate the temperature field with
the defect formation mechanism of the printed part is the focus of
our future work.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Heng Ma: Conceptualization, Writing – review & editing, Method­
ology, Validation, Data curation, Formal analysis. Zhuangzhuang Mao:
Methodology, Validation, Data curation, Formal analysis, Writing – re­
view & editing. Wei Feng: Data curation, Formal analysis, Methodol­
ogy, Validation. Yang Yang: Data curation, Formal analysis,
Methodology. Ce Hao: Formal analysis, Methodology,
20
Applied Thermal Engineering 211 (2022) 118515
Conceptualization, Data curation. Jiangfan Zhou: Conceptualization,
Data curation. Sheng Liu: Funding acquisition, Methodology. Huimin
Xie: Funding acquisition, Conceptualization, Methodology. Guangping
Guo: Formal analysis, Methodology. Zhanwei Liu: Funding acquisition,
Conceptualization, Methodology, Resources, Supervision, Validation,
Writing – review & editing.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence
the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgement
This work was financially supported by the National Key R&D Pro­
gram of China (Grant No. 2017YFB1103900), National Natural Science
Foundation of China [Grant No. 11972084], National Science and
Technology Major Project (2017-VI-0003-0073), Beijing National Sci­
ence Foundation (1192014), and Rapid Support Project of Equipment
Development Department of Military Commission (80904010502).
H. Ma et al. Applied Thermal Engineering 211 (2022) 118515

Appendix

Third-party certificate issued by National Institute of Metrology of China.

References [4] R. Huang, M. Riddle, D. Graziano, W. Joshua, D. Sujit, N. Sachin, C. Joe, M. Eric,
Energy and emissions saving potential of additive manufacturing: the case of
lightweight aircraft components, J. Clean. Prod. 135 (2016) 1559–1570.
[1] K. Taherkhani, E. Sheydaeian, C. Eischer, M. Otto, E. Toyserkani, Development of a
[5] D. Rejeski, F. Zhao, Y. Huang, Research needs and recommendations on
defect-detection platform using photodiode signals collected from the melt pool of
environmental implications of additive manufacturing, Addit. Manuf. 19 (2018)
laser powder-bed fusion, Addit. Manuf. 46 (2021) (2021), 102152.
21–28.
[2] B. Zhang, Y. Li, Q. Bai, Defect formation mechanisms in selective laser melting: a
[6] S.M. Yusuf, S. Cutler, N. Gao, Review: The impact of metal additive manufacturing
review, Chin. J. Mech. Eng. 30 (3) (2017) 515–527.
on the aerospace industry, Metals 9 (12) (2019) 1286.
[3] A. Vafadar, F. Guzzomi, A. Rassau, H. Kevin, Advances in metal additive
[7] C. Buchanan, L. Gardner, Metal 3D printing in construction: A review of methods,
manufacturing: A review of common processes, industrial applications, and current
research, applications, opportunities and challenges, Eng. Struct. 180 (2019)
challenges, Appl. Sci. 11 (3) (2021) 1213.
332–348.

21
H. Ma et al.
[8] M. Khanzadeh, S. Chowdhury, M.A. Tschopp, H.R. Doude, M. Marufuzzaman,
L. Bian, In-situ monitoring of melt pool images for porosity prediction in directed
energy deposition processes, IISE Trans. 51 (5) (2019) 437–455.
[9] P. Zhang, X. Zhou, H. Ma, J. Hu, Y. He, X. Wang, Y. Duan, Anomaly detection in
laser metal deposition with photodiode-based melt pool monitoring system, Opt.
Laser Technol. 144 (2021), 107454.
[10] J.A. Mitchell, T.A. Ivanoff, D. Dagel, J.D. Madison, B. Jared, Linking pyrometry to
porosity in additively manufactured metals, Addit. Manuf. 31 (2020), 100946.
[11] J.B. Forien, N.P. Calta, P.J. DePond, G.M. Guss, T.T. Roehling, M.J. Matthews,
Detecting keyhole pore defects and monitoring process signatures during laser
powder bed fusion: a correlation between in situ pyrometry and ex situ X-ray
radiography, Addit. Manuf. 35 (2020), 101336.
[12] C. Yang, Q. Xu, X. Su, B. Liu, Multiphase-field and experimental study of
solidification behavior in a nickel-based single crystal superalloy, Acta Mater. 175
(2019) 286–296.
[13] Z.J. Tang, W.W. Liu, Y.W. Wang, K.M. Saleheen, Z.C. Liu, S.T. Peng, Z. Zhang, H.
C. Zhang, A review on in situ monitoring technology for directed energy deposition
of metals, Int. J. Adv. Manuf. Technol. 108 (11–12) (2020) 3437–3463.
[14] P. Zhang, X. Zhou, X. Cheng, H. Sun, H. Ma, Y. Li, Elucidation of bubble evolution
and defect formation in directed energy deposition based on direct observation,
Addit. Manuf. 32 (2020), 101026.
[15] M.A. Naiel, D.S. Ertay, M. Vlasea, P. Fieguth, Adaptive vision-based detection of
laser-material interaction for directed energy deposition, Addit. Manuf. 36 (2020),
101468.
[16] D.A. Kriczky, J. Irwin, E.W. Reutzel, P. Michaleris, A.R. Nassar, J. Craig, 3D spatial
reconstruction of thermal characteristics in directed energy deposition through
optical thermal imaging, J. Mater. Process. Technol. 221 (2015) 172–186.
[17] H. Rezaeifar, M.A. Elbestawi, On-line melt pool temperature control in L-PBF
additive manufacturing, Int. J. Adv. Manuf. Technol. 112 (9–10) (2021)
2789–2804.
[18] Y. Sun, D. Gu, D. Dai, G.Meng, M. Guo, Q. Ge, X. Shi, Y. Li, G. Le, Ming. Yao,
Thermal behavior and microstructure evolution mechanism of W-20%Fe alloy
fabricated by laser metal deposition, Int. J. Mech. Sci. 183 (2020), 105772.
[19] J. Song, Y. Chew, G. Bi, B. Zhang, J. Bai, S.K. Moon, Numerical and experimental
study of laser aided additive manufacturing for melt-pool profile and grain
orientation analysis, Mater. Des. 137 (2018) 286–297.
[20] M. Hojjatzadeh, N.D. Parab, W. Yan, W. Yan, Q. Guo, L. Xiong, C. Zhao, M. Qu, L.
I. Escanoe, X. Xiao, K. Fezzaa, W. Everhart, T. Sun, L. Chen, Pore elimination
mechanisms during 3D printing of metals, Nat. Commun. 10 (1) (2019) 3088.
[21] M. M. Kirka, P. Fernandez-Zelaia, Y. Lee, P. Nandwana, S. Yoder, O. Acevedo, D.
Ryan, Mechanical performance of a non-weldable ni-base superalloy: inconel 738
fabricated by electron beam melting, 2020, 1075-1084.
[22] H. Baumgartl, J. Tomas, R. Buettner, M. Merkel, A deep learning-based model for
defect detection in laser-powder bed fusion using in-situ thermographic
monitoring, Progress in Additive Manufacturing 5 (3) (2020) 277–285.
[23] Y. Li, D. Gu, Thermal behavior during selective laser melting of commercially pure
titanium powder: Numerical simulation and experimental study, Addit. Manuf. 1
(2014) 99–109.
[24] C. Hao, Z. Liu, H. Xie, K. Zhao, S. Liu, Real-time measurement method of melt pool
temperature in the directed energy deposition process, App. Therm. Eng. 177
(2020), 115475.
[25] B. Wu, Z. Pan, D. Ding, D. Cuiuri, H. Li, Effects of heat accumulation on
microstructure and mechanical properties of Ti6Al4V alloy deposited by wire arc
additive manufacturing, Addit. Manuf. 23 (2018) 151–160.
22
Applied Thermal Engineering 211 (2022) 118515
[26] H. Krauss, C. Eschey, M.F. Zaeh, Thermography for monitoring the selective laser
melting process, in: in: 23rd Annual International Solid Freeform Fabrication
Symposium, 2012, pp. 999–1014.
[27] L. Zheng, Q. Zhang, H. Cao, W. Wu, H. Ma, X. Ding, J. Yang, X. Duan, S. Fan, Melt
pool boundary extraction and its width prediction from infrared images in selective
laser melting, Mater. Design 183 (2019), 108110.
[28] B. Lane, S. Moylan, E.P. Whitenton, L. Ma, Thermographic measurements of the
commercial laser powder bed fusion process at NIST, Rapid Prototyp. J. 22 (5)
(2016) 778–787.
[29] H. Tan, J. Chen, X. Lin, F. Zhang, W. Huang, Research on molten pool temperature
in the process of laser rapid forming, J. Mater. Process. Techol. 198 (1–3) (2008)
454–462.
[30] S. Moylan, E. Whitenton, B. Lane, J. Slotwinski, Infrared thermography for laser-
based powder bed fusion additive manufacturing processes, American Institute of,
Physics 1581 (2014) 1191–1196.
[31] T. Furumoto, T. Ueda, M.R. Alkahari, A. Hosokawa, Investigation of laser
consolidation process for metal powder by two-color pyrometer and high-speed
video camera, CIRP Annals 62 (1) (2013) 223–226.
[32] P.A. Hooper, Melt pool temperature and cooling rates in laser powder bed fusion,
Addit. Manuf. 22 (2018) 548–559.
[33] B. Pan, Recent progress in digital image correlation, Exp. Mech. 51 (7) (2011)
1223–1235.
[34] Y.T. Chan, K c. ho,, A simple and efficient estimator for hyperbolic location, IEEE
Trans. Signal Process. 42 (8) (2002) 1905–1915.
[35] W h. foy,, Position-Location Solutions by taylor-series estimation, IEEE Trans
Aerosp Electron Syst. 12 (2) (2007) 187–194.
[36] Q.L. Yan, J.F. Chen, A practical approach for acoustic sensor network design based
on performance analysis of TDOA localization method, in, Advanced Information
Technology, Electronic and Automation Control Conference. IEEE. (2015)
150–154.
[37] X. K. Huang, X. Y. Tian, Q. Zhong, S. W., He, C. B. Huo, Y. Cao, Z. Q. Tong, D. C. Li,
Real-time process control of powder bed fusion by monitoring dynamic
temperature field. Adv. Manuf. 8 (3) (2020), 380-391.
[38] K. Zeng, P. Deepankar, S. Brent, A review of thermal analysis methods in laser
sintering and selective laser melting, University of Texas at Austin, 2012.
[39] V. Semak, A. Matsunawa, The role of recoil pressure in energy balance during laser
materials processing, J. Phys. D Appl. Phys. 30 (18) (1997) 2541–2552.
[40] V.V. Semak, B. Damkroger, S. Kempka, Temporal evolution of the temperature
field in the beam interaction zone during laser material processing, Phys. D Appl.
Phys. 32 (15) (1999) 1819–1825.
[41] H. Ki, P.S. Mohanty, J. Mazumder, Modeling of laser keyhole welding: Part I.
Mathematical modeling, numerical methodology, role of recoil pressure, multiple
reflections, and free surface evolution, Metall. Mater. Trans. A Phys. Metall. Mater.
Sci. 33 (6) (2002) 1817–1830.
[42] H. Ki, P.S. Mohanty, J. Mazumder, Modeling of laser keyhole welding: Part II.
Simulation of keyhole evolution, velocity, temperature profile, and experimental
verification, Metall. Mater. Trans. A Phys. Metall. Mater. Sci. 33 (6) (2002)
1831–1842.
[43] Y.S. Lee, W. Zhang, Modeling of heat transfer, fluid flow and solidification
microstructure of nickel-base superalloy fabricated by laser powder bed fusion,
Addit. Manuf. 12 (2016) 178–188.