Surface & Coatings Technology 397 (2020) 126061

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Surface & Coatings Technology

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

Investigation of heating behavior of laser beam on powder stream in T

directed energy deposition
Hua Tana,b,⁎, Yanbo Fanga,b, Chongliang Zhongc,⁎, Zihao Yuana,b, Wei Fana,b, Zuo Lia,b,
Jing Chena,b, Xin Lina,b
a
State Key Laboratory of Solidification Processing, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi'an 710072, PR China
b
Key Laboratory of Metal High Performance Additive Manufacturing and Innovative Design, MIIT China, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi'an 710072, PR China
c
Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology ILT, Steinbachstr.15, 52074 Aachen, Germany

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Keywords: This study used a high-speed camera to observe the interaction of laser beam and powder stream in directed
Directed energy deposition (DED) energy deposition (DED), by which an effective method for characterizing the temperature evolution law of the
Laser deposition incident particles is developed based on the image gray analysis. Combined with the mathematical analysis, the
Laser beam heating behavior of laser beam on the powder particles was investigated. It shows that by decreasing the speed
Powder stream
and size of powder particles or increasing the laser power, the incident particle temperature reaching the de-
Particle temperature
position surface can be sufficiently increased. With the decrease of the particle speed from 9.3 m s−1 to
3.9 m s−1, the particle temperature at theoretical deposition surface is increased by 144%. In particular, the
increase of the powder incident angle can significantly increase the incident temperature of powder particles.
The temperature of the 65° incident particle is increased by 54.4% relative to that of the 50° incident particle.
Due to the effects of the laser energy distribution along the moving trajectories, the powder particles that cross
the centre axis of the laser beam and fall near the edge of the laser spot on theoretical deposition surface have the
highest incident temperature. Single-pass deposition experiments show that the enhancing interaction effect
between laser beam and powder stream can effectively improve deposition quality and save energy. 20% and
30% laser power were saved to obtain good deposition quality by increasing powder stream incident angle and
decreasing the particle speed, respectively.

1. Introduction
Directed energy deposition (DED) is an advanced manufacturing
technology that has been widely used in the surface protection, man-
ufacture and repair of high-performance components [1–3]. And this
technology also has great potential for the preparation of new materials
due to its technical characteristics, such as functional graded materials
[4,5] and composite materials [6,7]. During the directed energy de-
position process, there is a short-term interaction between the powder
particles and the high-energy laser beam before the powder particles
enter the melt pool, which causes the laser energy attenuation [8,9] and
the powder particles to have a non-linear temperature increase. Gen-
erally, the entry of high-temperature particles into the melt pool will
facilitate the sufficient melting of powder particles, thereby improving
the metallurgical quality, and it is also expected to significantly in-
crease the deposition efficiency of DED process. Schopphoven et al.
[10] indicated that increasing the interaction distance between the
powder particles and the laser beam will greatly increase the tem-
perature of the powder particles before entering the melt pool, so that
the powder utilization rate is significantly increased during the de-
position process, and significantly reduced the porosity of the sedi-
mentary layer and the area of the dilution zone. Zhong et al. [11] has
even achieved a deposition efficiency of approx. 5 kg h−1 and good
metallurgical quality by optimizing the interaction time between the
powder and the laser beam in DED with Inconel 718. Therefore, it is
crucial to understand the heating behavior of laser beam on the powder
particles and will provide a scientific basis for the optimal design and
control of laser-powder interactions in DED.
As the powder particles move very fast, the interaction time be-
tween powder particle and the laser beam is very short and so it is
extremely difficult to measure the rapid temperature evolution of a
single particle in laser beam. In order to investigate the heating beha-
vior of laser beam on high-speed moving powders, researchers mostly
used numerical simulation methods to model the interaction between

⁎
Corresponding authors.
E-mail addresses: tanhua@nwpu.edu.cn (H. Tan), chongliang.zhong@ilt.fraunhofer.de (C. Zhong).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.surfcoat.2020.126061
Received 13 April 2020; Received in revised form 8 June 2020; Accepted 10 June 2020
Available online 11 June 2020
0257-8972/ © 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
H. Tan, et al.
laser beam and powder particles to study the heating of powder parti-
cles in laser beam. Liu et al. [12] and Lin et al. [13] established a
temperature rise model for powder particles moving in a divergent
beam with a uniform energy distribution spot. The calculations show
that the powder particle speed, size and the moving distance in the laser
beam has a significant effect on the temperature of the particles, and
the small powder particles at a lower speed passing through laser beam,
might reach the maximum temperature above the melting point. Wen
et al. [14] built a finite element model for the interaction of laser beam
and powders and indicate the temperature rise characteristics of the
particles in the powder stream vary greatly. These numerical simulation
studies on the heating effect of laser beam on powders during DED
process considered mainly the ideal interaction processes or powder
flows fed by specific nozzles, resulting in powder particle movement
speed and movement trajectory limited to a certain range, making
difficulty in revealing completely the nonlinear heating behavior of
laser beam on various high-speed powder particles. On the other hand,
the existing researches were basically conducted by theoretical analysis
method, but still there is a lack of feasible experimental detection
methods to effectively verify the calculation of powder temperature rise
law. In fact Brisley et al. [15] used CCD camera combined with image-
processing techniques and 2-color radiation thermometry to measure
the temperature of the flame; Singh et al. [16] have developed a
technique which uses high-speed photography to measure the tem-
perature of the combustion cylinder of a diesel engine in a soot en-
vironment. Therefore, after the post-processing, the gray image of the
moving powder particles heated by the laser can reflect the temperature
change of the powder flow, which is very important for the study of the
temperature change trend during the particle movement.
In this study, the experimental characterization and mathematical
analysis were conducted to systematically investigate the nonlinear
temperature evolution behavior of high-speed powder particles in the
laser beam with considering different process conditions.
2. Experimental scheme
2.1. Observation of interaction between laser beam and powder stream
During DED process, before the powder particles enter the melt
pool, the interaction area between powder stream and laser beam is
very small and the interaction time is very short (as shown in Fig. 1(a)).
In order to investigate the heating effect of laser beam on high speed
Fig. 1. Schematic of directed energy deposition process (a) and observation system for the powder-laser interaction process (b).
2
Surface & Coatings Technology 397 (2020) 126061
feeding powder in the interaction area, an observation system for the
powder-laser interaction process was established (as shown in
Fig. 1(b)). The system includes an IPG YLS-3000-CL laser (wavelength
1070 nm, rated output power 3000 W, beam
quality≥2.0 mm × mrad), a pco.1200hs digital high-speed camera
with a zoom lens, a DPSF-2 high-precision powder feeder and a lateral
powder feeding nozzle with an internal diameter of 1.2 mm. As the
powder particles enter the laser beam and were heated, their self-lu-
minous energy can be captured by the camera to form a grayscale image
of the powder stream, and the higher the temperature, the larger is the
grayscale. Therefore, by using a high-speed camera to continuously
capture the interaction area between the powder stream and laser
beam, the gray image of powder stream composed of a lots of moving
particle groups is obtained. A lateral powder feeding nozzle was used to
obtain a powder stream at a predetermined incident angle, which de-
liver the powder to the laser irradiation area. This study only focuses on
the interaction effect between the powder particles and the laser before
reaching the deposited surface. In order to exclude the influence of the
high brightness melt pool and the interference of the rebound powder
particles from the substrate, the substrate was not placed at the theo-
retical deposition position under the laser beam in the observation
experiments. The specific observation scheme is shown in Fig. 1(b).
First, the powder feeder conveys the powders to the lateral nozzle
through the carrier gas, and then the lateral nozzle injects the powder
toward the laser beam at a certain incident angle. The center axis of the
nozzle (the symmetrical axis of powder stream) was arranged at in-
cidence angle θ with horizontal plane, and intersects with the center
axis of laser beam, and they are all located in the z-o-x plane. The
vertical distance between the nozzle exit and the theoretical deposition
surface is S. During the shooting process, a narrow-band filter is in-
stalled in front of the high-speed camera lens to eliminate the influence
of powder stream reflection and scattered laser light. The high-speed
camera faces the interaction area of the laser beam and powder stream
in the Y-axis direction for real-time observation and maintains the
image, while the lower edge of observation area coincides with the
theoretical deposition surface. The grayscale image of powder stream
under the laser-powder interaction is transmitted to a computer for
image processing and analysis, and finally the grayscale evolution law
of the powder stream image can be obtained. The experimental para-
meters used in this study are shown in Table 1.
In this experiment, the spherical powder particles of GH4169 super
alloy manufactured by the Plasma-Rotating Electrode Process (PREP),
H. Tan, et al.
Table 1
Experimental parameters of laser-powder interaction zone observation.
Parameters
Angle of incidence θ (°)
The distance from the nozzle exit plane to the theoretical processing
surface S (mm)
Powder carrier gas flow Q (L min−1)
Powder feed rate M (kg h−1)
Camera exposure time te (μs)
Laser power P (W)
was used as the conveying material. The chemical composition of the
IN718 powder is as follows (wt%): 18.48Cr, 0.54Al, 5.30Nb, 3.04Mo,
0.95Ti, 0.03C, 52.76Ni and balance Fe. The morphology of the powder
particles is shown in Fig. 2(a). It can be seen that the sphericity of the
powder particles is good. The powder particle size distribution range is
15–90 μm. The specific particle size distribution is shown in Fig. 2(b). It
can be seen that the powder particle size is concentrated mainly be-
tween 30 and 60 μm, and the average particle size can be considered as
45 μm. Before the experiment, the powder was dried under vacuum at
120 °C (≤0.1 MPa) for 2 h to remove the moisture in the powder, to
ensure good powder flow ability, and to ensure that the powder stream
was stable and uniform during the experiment. The powder carrier gas
used in this experiment was high-purity argon.
2.2. Characterization of powder stream temperature evolution
Fig. 3 (a) shows the single frame gray image of the powder stream
irradiated by the laser beam at a powder carrier gas flow rate of
3 L min-1, powder feed rate M = 0.74 kg h−1, laser power P = 2000 W,
camera exposure time te = 120 μs, powder stream incident angle
θ = 65° and the center axis of the powder stream is aligned with the
center of the laser spot on the theoretical deposition surface. From the
figure, a large number of bright white line segments can be seen. This is
due to the high brightness of the powder particles after an increase the
temperature by laser irradiation. During its high-speed movement, the
camera records the powder particles motion trajectory for the exposure
time, thus presenting a bright white small line segment image [17,18].
Due to the extremely high moving speed and random trajectory of the
powder particles in the laser beam, the entire heating process of
tracking specific trajectories and specific particles are difficult to
achieve. Although the size of the powder particles is different, and the
particle trajectory in the powder stream is random at any time, statis-
tically, the distribution rule of the moving particles in the powder
stream tends to be stable for a long time. Therefore, by superimposing
and averaging the captured 200-frame powder stream images, an
average gray-scale image of the powder stream reflecting a long-term
Fig. 2. Powder stock for experiments: (a) particles appearance of the GH4169 powders, (b) particle size distribution.
Surface & Coatings Technology 397 (2020) 126061
stable state can be obtained (as shown in Fig. 3 (b)).
200
1
Value k (i, j ) = kn (i, j )
200 n=1 (1)
50, 65
9.2 where k (i, j ) is the average grayscale of pixel point (i, j) in powder
stream image and kn(i, j) is the grayscale value of pixel point (i, j) in
3, 6, 8 powder stream image n. Based on Mie theory [19] and the brightness-
0.74
temperature relation [20], it can be known that the grayscale of the
120
2000 powder stream image has a strict correlation with the powder stream
concentration and temperature, which can be written as:
k (i, j ) T (i , j ) C (i , j ) (2)
where T(i, j) is the average temperature of powder stream at point (i, j)
in powder stream image and C(i, j) is the mass concentration of the
powder particle at point (i, j) in powder stream image. Because the
powder stream is usually fed into the centre of the light spot on the
deposition surface, the powder stream centre axis is used as the typical
trajectory of the powder stream incident at a certain angle. By ex-
tracting the gray value on this axis, the typical grayscale distribution of
powder stream at this incident angle is obtained (as shown in Fig. 3 (c)).
When the powder stream keeps Gaussian distribution but gradually
diverges (that is, the powder mass concentration decreases) as it moves
away from the nozzle outlet, causes the image gray scale to decrease
proportionally, as known from Eq. (2). The gray scale change rule on
the central axis reflects the typical temperature change rule of the beam
flow, which will cause important deviations. Therefore, in order to
accurately reflect the powder stream temperature change rule, the gray
scale extracted on the central axis of the powder stream needs to be
corrected to eliminate the effects of powder stream concentration
changes. Based on the previous research [21] methods on the char-
acterization and calculation a single beam of powder, the mass con-
centration of the powder particle on central axis of powder stream at
the distance s from nozzle exit Cm (s) can be expressed as:
M
Cm (s )
(l + s ) 2 (3)
where M is the powder feed rate and l is the distance between the
virtual source of powder stream and the nozzle exit (The nozzle used in
this study is the same as in the previous research [21], therefore l is
calculated as 5.92 based on the previous research). In order to eliminate
the effect of mass concentration variation, the mass concentration of the
powder particles on central axis of powder stream should remain con-
stant after entering laser beam. Therefore, according to Eq. (3), Cm(s)
after entering laser beam can be corrected as
2
l+s
Cm (s ) = Cm (s0) = Cm (s ) s > s0
l + s0 (4)
3
H. Tan, et al. Surface & Coatings Technology 397 (2020) 126061

Fig. 3. Image of powder stream image through the laser beam: (a) original image, (b) average gray image, (c) extraction of typical gray distribution of powder
stream.

2
l+s
k (s ) = k (s ) s > s0
l + s0 (7)
where k(s) is the measured gray value on central axis of powder stream
image. So the corrected gray value k⁎(s) can be calculated from Eq. (7)
based on the measured gray value k(s). So the temperature evolution
law on the central line of powder stream in laser beam can be reflected
by the corrected gray value k⁎(s).

3. Temperature rise analysis of particle in laser beam

In this study, it is assumed that: (1) the volume of metal powder

particles is constant, and the volume fraction of particles in the powder
stream is small, and the interaction between the particles and the
shielding of the laser beam by the powder stream are ignored; (2) The
powder particles absorb energy only on the facing side and in order to
facilitate the calculation, this study considers that the laser absorption
rate of the powder is constant and does not change with the tempera-
ture of the powder particles; (3) As the powder particles are extremely
small, it is assumed that the internal temperature of a single powder is
always uniform, and entire particle heated in a moment upon laser ir-
Fig. 4. Schematic diagram of the geometric relationship between the powder
radiation; (4) The powder particles keep moving linearly and the speed
particle motion trajectory and the laser beam interaction.
is constant.
Fig. 4 shows a schematic diagram of interaction of a typical incident
where C⁎m(s) is the corrected mass concentration of the powder particle powder particle with a laser beam before reaching the theoretical de-
on central axis of powder stream, s0 is the distance between the powder position surface. Considering that the laser beam energy used in the
particles and the nozzle exit when the powder particles enter the laser study satisfies the Gaussian distribution [22], from the geometric re-
beam, and s is the distance between the powder particles and the nozzle lationship in Fig. 4, the energy distribution I on the center longitudinal
exit after the powder particles enter the laser beam. So, from Eq. (2), section of the laser beam can be rewritten as:
the corrected gray value k⁎(s) on central axis of powder stream image
can be expressed as.
2P x2
I (x , z ) = exp
k (s ) T (s ) Cm (s ) = T (s ) Cm (s0) s > s0 (5) ( )
z L 2
tan
+ w0 2
( )
z L 2
tan
+ w0 2
(8)
Because Cm(s0) is constant, it can be seen that the corrected gray where P is the laser power, L is the distance from the theoretical de-
value k⁎(s) is proportional to the powder temperature T(s) on central position surface to the laser beam waist, w0 is the laser beam waist
axis of powder stream. Hence the corrected gray value k⁎(s) reflects the radius, and α is the inclination angle of the laser focal spot curve pro-
powder temperature. Further, from Eq. (4), the Eq. (5) can be written gressive line. When the powder particles are injected into the laser
as. beam, according to the laws of thermodynamics:
2 4 3
l+s dQ = rp p cp dT
k (s ) T (s ) Cm (s ) s > s0 3 (9)
l + s0 (6)
ds
dQcon = 4 rp2h (T T0 )
According to Eq. (2), we can obtain. Vp (10)

4
H. Tan, et al.
ds
dQrad = 4 rp2 (T 4 T0 4)
Vp (11)
Where rp is the radius of the powder particles; cp is the specific heat
capacity of the powder particles; h is the convection heat transfer
coefficient; ε is the total emission coefficient; σ is the Stephen-
Boltzmann constant; T0 is the ambient temperature; T is the tempera-
ture of the powder particles; ds is the distance of movement of the
powder particles per unit time; Vp is the movement speed of the powder
particles, dQ is the increase in the internal energy of the powder par-
ticles within the distance of ds, dQrad is the radiation of the powder
particles within the distance of ds, and dQcon is the convection of the
powder particles within the distance of ds. Considering that the powder
particle absorbs light only on the light incident side, the projected area
of the powder particle becomes equivalent to the light absorbing sur-
face [13,14]. Therefore, the laser energy dQabs absorbed by the powder
particles within the distance of ds can be expressed as:
ds
dQabs = rp2 I (x , z )
Vp (12)
where β is the absorption rate of laser light by the powder particles.
According to the law of conservation of energy:
dQ = dQabs dQrad dQcon (13)
From the geometric relationship shown in Fig. 4, after the powder
particles leave the powder outlet for a distance of s, the coordinates in
the xoz coordinate system can be expressed as:
(14)
x=X s cos
z=S s sin (15)
Among them, X is the abscissa of the incident position of the powder
particles, S is the distance from the nozzle exit plane to the substrate,
and θ is the incident angle of the powder stream.
Under the certain track of powder particle feeding, the evolution of
dQabs, dQrad, dQcon and dQ with the movement distance before the
powder particles reach the theoretical processing surface can be ob-
tained from Eqs. (8)–(15), and the evolution of the particle temperature
with movement distance before the powder particles reach the theo-
retical deposition surface can be obtained. Furthermore, the influence
of factors such as the incident angle θ of the powder particles, the speed
of movement Vp, the radius rp of the powder particles, and the laser
power P on the temperature rise of the powder particles are analyzed.
The parameters used in the calculations are shown in Table 2.
4. Results and discussion
4.1. Influence of incident speed on particle temperature evolution
In order to obtain different powder particle speed, the following
process conditions were used in this study: laser power P = 2000 W,
camera exposure time te = 120 μs, powder stream incident angle
θ = 65°, powder carrier gas flow rate Q = 3 L min−1, 6 L min−1 and
10 L min−1, powder feed rate M = 0.74 kg h−1, and the central axis of
the powder stream passes through the centre of the laser spot on the
theoretical deposited surface. Based on the calculation method of par-
ticle movement speed [17,18] and the particle movement distance
within high-speed photography exposure time, the average movement
speed of powder particles was measured: Vp = 3.9 m s−1, 5.6 m s−1
and 9.3 m s−1. Therefore, in this study, the average grayscale images of
powder streams with different particle average speed under laser beam
irradiation were obtained by Eq. (1), as shown in Fig. 5. It can be seen
that as the powder particle speed increases, the overall brightness value
of the powder stream gradually decreases. The grayscale changed on
the central axis of the typical powder stream in the image is extracted
according to Fig. 3(c), as shown in Fig. 6(a). It can be seen that with
different powder particle speed, the change law of the powder particle
5
Surface & Coatings Technology 397 (2020) 126061
Table 2
The typical parameters used in the calculation.
Parameters Symbol Value
The distance between laser beam waist and L 20
substrate (mm)
The distance between nozzle exit and S 9.2
substrate (mm)
Inclined angle of progressive line of laser α 87.5
focus curve (°)
Incident angle of powder stream (°) θ 50, 65
Laser waist radius (mm) w0 1.15 mm
Laser power (W) P 1000, 1500, 2000, 2500
Laser absorptivity β 0.35
Particle speed (m s−1) Vp 1.5–6
Particle radius (μm) rp 15–45
Density of particle material (g cm−3) ρp 8.24
Specific heat of particle material (J g−1 K−1) Cp 0.615
Initial temperature of particle (°C) T0 25
Full emissivity of particle material ε 0.5
Stephen-Boltzmann constant σ 5.67 × 10−8
Convective heat transfer coefficient h 300
temperature with the moving distance obtained by calculation is con-
sistent with the grayscale change law of image extraction, indicating
that the laser beam heating model for powder particle established in
this study is reasonable and reliable. From the calculated particle
temperature evolution curve and grayscale distribution measurement
curve, it can be known that the powder particle temperature is basically
unchanged before the powder enters the laser beam irradiation area.
When the powder enters the laser irradiation area, the powder moves at
a high speed undergo an accelerated temperature increase as the
movement distance increases due to the increase of laser energy on the
powder particle tracks. Finally, particles reach the maximum tem-
perature when they reach the theoretical deposition surface. It shows
that particle temperature at theoretical deposition surface is increased
by 144% from Vp = 9.3 m s−1 to 3.9 m s−1. In addition, it can be also
seen that as the speed of the powder particles increases, the powder
particle temperature rises within a unit of distance decrease. This is
because the faster the powder particles move on the same track, the
shorter the laser heating time per unit movement distance. Fig. 6(b)
shows the calculation results of the maximum temperature when the
powder particles reach the theoretical deposition surface at different
incident speeds. It can also be seen that the maximum temperature of
the powder particles first decreases significantly with the increase of
the powder particle speed, but as the particle speed further increases,
the maximum particle temperature becomes slow to decrease. This
shows that the powder incident speed can be reduced by controlling the
powder carrier gas flow, to so effectively increase the overall tem-
perature of the powder stream before entering the melt pool in the laser
deposition with synchronous powder feeding, which even allows a large
number of powder particles to reach the melting temperature. Studies
have shown that [23,24] high temperature or liquid powder particles
are beneficial to the melting and trapping of powder particles in the
melt pool, thereby improving powder utilization and deposition effi-
ciency during the surface deposition process.
4.2. Influence of incident angle on particle temperature evolution
In DED process, the centre axis of the lateral powder stream is
usually aligned with the centre of the laser spot on the theoretical
processing surface to ensure that the most powder enters the molten
pool. Therefore, the symmetry axis of powder stream at different in-
cident angles will also point to the centre of the laser spot. As shown in
Fig. 7, although the incident angle of the powder changes, the distance
from the nozzle exit to the centre of the spot on the theoretical de-
position surface remains unchanged. Based on this premise, the effect of
powder particle incident angle on the temperature change of powder
H. Tan, et al. Surface & Coatings Technology 397 (2020) 126061

Fig. 5. Effect of powder particle motion speed on the gray level of powder stream image: (a) Vp = 3.9 m s−1, (b) Vp = 5.6 m s−1, (c) Vp = 9.3 m s−1.

Fig. 6. Effect of powder particle speed on powder particle temperature: (a) grayscale extraction on the central axis of powder stream and calculation of temperature
evolution of incident powder particles, (b) calculated temperature change curve of powder particles reaching the theoretical processing surface with the different
powder particle speed.

stream is studied under powder exit 1 (incident angle θ = 65°) and

Fig. 7. Schematic diagram of incident angle definition of powder particle.
powder exit 2 (incident angle θ = 50°).
Fig. 8 shows a grayscale image of a powder stream with an incident
angle of 65° and an incident angle of 50°. As can be seen from the
figure, compared to the 50° incident powder feeding method, the 65°
incident powder feeding method has a higher interaction position, a
longer interaction distance, and a significantly higher overall brightness
of the powder stream between the powder stream and the laser beam.
Fig. 9 shows the heating behavior of laser beam on the particles along
the central axis of the powder stream at different incident angles. From
Fig. 9(a), it can be seen that the change of energy input and loss of
powder particle with the particle's movement at incident angles. It can
be seen that the overall heat dissipation by radiation and convection
methods is very small and can be ignored. Therefore, the analysis and
discussion can be only based on the change due to laser energy input. It
can be also seen that the energy input by laser starts to increase at the
distance about 4 mm from nozzle exit along the incident angle of 65°,
and increase at the distance about 6 mm from nozzle exit along the
incident angle of 50°, then both rapidly increase to about 0.34 J at the
theoretical deposition surface. Correspondingly, it can be seen that
when the incident angle is 65°, the powder temperature rises earlier,

6
H. Tan, et al. Surface & Coatings Technology 397 (2020) 126061

Fig. 8. Gray image of powder stream at different incident angles: (a) incident angle θ = 65°, (b) incident angle θ = 50°.

and the heating rate is significantly higher than the case of 50° incident
angle due to the greater energy input. When the powder particle
reaches the theoretical deposition surface, the temperature (image
grayscale) of the 65° incident particle (1050 °C) is significantly higher
than that of the 50° incident particle (680 °C), and is increased by
54.4%. Therefore, it can be concluded that the larger the incident angle
of particle, the longer the heating distance and the faster the tem-
perature rise of the particle, resulting in the higher the temperature
reaching the theoretical deposition surface.

Fig. 9. Heating behavior of laser beam on the particles along the central axis of the powder stream at different incident angles: (a) energy increment of particle, (b)
temperature evolution of particle.

7
H. Tan, et al.
Fig. 10. Interaction between powder particles and laser beam under different
tracks.
4.3. Effect of particle tracks on temperature rise
For the actual divergent powder stream, there will be a large
amount of powder particles with different tracks in the same powder
stream. Fig. 10 shows the interaction diagram of different track particle
and laser beam with the powder exit position X = 4.29 mm, particle
diameter dp = 45 μm, powder carrier gas flow Q = 3 L min−1 (particle
speed Vp = 3.9 m s−1). In this study, it is divided into three typical
cases: (1) the tracks of the powder particles through the laser beam to
the theoretical deposition surface (as shown in track 1, the angle
δ = 40° with the horizontal); (2) the powder particles passing through
the centre of the laser beam axis, but it still falls within the nominal
laser spot when it reaches the theoretical deposition surface (as shown
in track 2 in the figure, its angle with the horizontal δ = 55°); (3)
powder particles entering the laser beam, but does not pass through the
central axis of the laser beam (as shown in track 3 in the figure, its angle
with the horizontal δ = 70°). Figs. 11(a), 12(a), and 13(a) show the
change of energy input (by laser) and loss (by radiation and convection)
Fig. 11. Heating behavior of laser beam on the particle along track 1 (δ = 40°): (a) energy increment of particle, (b) temperature evolution of particle.
8
Surface & Coatings Technology 397 (2020) 126061
of powder particle under three incident tracks. Similarly, it can be seen
that laser energy input is dominant. From Fig. 11(b), when the powder
particle enters the laser beam along track 1, the particle temperature
increases rapidly with the increase of laser energy input. When the
powder particles pass the centre line of the laser beam, the laser energy
input decreases rapidly. So the temperature increase rate of the particle
gradually decreases. After the powder particles fly out of the nominal
edge of the laser beam, due to the small heat dissipation, the particle
temperature tends to decrease slowly before it reaches the theoretical
deposition surface. However, as can be seen from Fig. 11(b), the
downward trend of the grayscale curve at cooling stage is more obvious
than the theoretical calculation curve, which may be caused by two
reasons: (1) The full emissivity of particle material ε and the convective
heat transfer coefficient h used in the theoretical calculation are a bit
small, resulting in some deviation; (2) In this study, it is assumed that
the laser energy density satisfies the Gaussian distribution, so the laser
energy distribution extends infinitely and has no boundaries, therefore,
in the calculation, a small amount of laser energy still acts on the
powder particle at cooling stage. But in actual experiments, the laser
spot size is limited, so the laser has a boundary, therefore, when the
particles fly out of the laser beam range, there is no laser energy input.
From Fig. 11(a), compared with the energy loss caused by convection
and thermal radiation, the energy increase caused by the absorption of
laser energy plays a leading role in the energy change of the particles. It
is believed that the second reason should be the main reason that cause
the two curves to not coincide with each other at cooling stage. As
shown in Fig. 12(b), when the powder particles move along track 2 to
enter the laser beam, the particle temperature rising accelerates with
the rapid increase of laser energy input. Once the powder particles pass
the centre line of the laser beam, the laser energy density decreases
rapidly, so the particle temperature rise rate gradually decreases until it
reaches the theoretical deposition surface. From Fig. 13(b), when the
powder particles move along track 3 to enter the laser beam, the laser
energy density rapidly increases to cause the accelerated increase of
particle temperature until it reaches the theory deposition surface.
From the above results, it can be found that the temperature of the
particle which moves along track 1 to theory deposition surface is the
lowest (420 °C), and the final temperature of the particle along track 2
is the highest (1680 °C), which is increased by 300% relative to that of
track 1. It shows that the temperature of powder particles in the same
powder stream will have significant differences due to their different
H. Tan, et al. Surface & Coatings Technology 397 (2020) 126061

Fig. 12. Heating behavior of laser beam on the particle along track 1 (δ = 55°): (a) energy increment of particle, (b) temperature evolution of particle.

Fig. 13. Heating behavior of laser beam on the particle along track 1 (δ = 70°): (a) energy increment of particle, (b) temperature evolution of particle.

tracks. From the calculations of three typical tracks, it can be inferred 4 3

rp p cp dT
that the powder particles, which cross the centre axis of the laser beam 3
and reach the edge of the laser spot on theory deposition surface, will = rp2 I (x , z )
ds
4 rp2 (T 4 T0 4)
ds
4 rp2h (T T0 )
ds
have the highest incident temperature. Vp Vp Vp (16)
Further simplifications are available,
4.4. Influence of particle size on particle temperature evolution dT = [3 I (x , z ) 12 (T 4 T0 4) 12h (T T0 )]
ds
4Vp rp p cp (17)
With the nozzle exit position X = 4.29 mm, the incident angle
θ = 65°, the powder particle moving speed Vp = 3.9 m s−1, the tem- Therefore, it can be known from Eq. (17) that as the powder particle
perature of the powder particles with different particle sizes is calcu- radius decreases, dT will increase. This means that under the same
lated, as shown in Fig. 14(a). It can be seen from the figure that with the motion trajectory and particle speed, the heating rate of smaller powder
decrease of particle size, the heating rate of the powder particle in laser particles will be faster, and it will have a higher temperature when it
beam increases significantly, and the particle temperature at the theo- reaches the theoretical deposition surface. Fig. 14(b) shows the varia-
retical deposition surface increases non-linearly as the particle size tion curve of the maximum temperature for powder particles of dif-
decreases. Substituting Eqs. (9)–(12) into Eq. (13) gives: ferent sizes reaching the theoretical deposition surface. It can also be
seen that the maximum temperature when the powder particles reach

9
H. Tan, et al.
Fig. 14. Effect of particle sizes on particle temperature: (a) particle temperature evolution curves with different particle sizes, (b) particle temperature reaching the
theoretical deposition surface with different particle sizes.
the theoretical deposition surface first decreases significantly with the
increase of the particle radius, but with the further increase of the
particle radius, the maximum temperature of the particle slowly de-
creases.
4.5. Influence of laser power on particle temperature evolution
Fig. 15 shows the calculation results of influence on powder particle
temperature evolution under powder exit position X = 4.29 mm, in-
cident angle θ = 65°, powder particle speed Vp = 3.9 m s−1, particle
diameter dp = 45 μm, different laser power (1000 W, 1500 W, 2000 W,
2500 W). It can be seen from Fig. 15 (a) that as the laser power in-
creases, the temperature of the powder particles rises significantly after
entering the beam, and it can be found from Fig. 15 (b) that the max-
imum temperature of the powder particles reaching the theoretical
processing surface increases linearly with increasing laser power. This
is because with the increase of laser power, the internal energy per unit
volume of powder particles of the same particle size at any position on
the same trajectory increases, and the total internal energy of the
powder particles is proportionally increased when they finally reach the
theoretical surface. This shows that the use of higher laser power is
conducive to significantly increasing the overall temperature of the
powder stream before entering the molten pool in laser surface
Fig. 15. Effect of laser powers on particle temperature: (a) particle temperature evolution with different laser powers, (b) particle temperature reaching the the-
oretical deposition surface with different laser powers.
10
Surface & Coatings Technology 397 (2020) 126061
deposition, thereby improving the powder utilization rate, deposition
efficiency and metallurgical quality during the deposition process.
4.6. Influence of laser-powder interaction on deposition quality
Several single-pass depositions were performed to confirm the in-
fluence of laser-powder interaction on the deposition quality. In the
deposition experiments, the central axis of the powder stream was al-
ways aligned with the centre of the laser spot on the steel substrate
surface. The interaction relationships between powder stream and laser
beam are the same as that shown in Fig. 5 and Fig. 8, respectively. The
following process conditions were used: laser power P = 700–1500 W,
powder stream incident angle θ = 50° and 65°, powder carrier gas flow
rate Q = 6 L min−1 (corresponding average particle incident speed
Vp = 5.6 m s−1), 10 L min−1 ((corresponding average particle speed
Vp = 9.3 m s−1), powder feed rate M = 0.74 kg h−1, laser scanning
velocity v = 600 m s−1, and the distance between laser beam waist and
substrate L = 20 mm. Other process conditions are consistent with the
observation experiment of laser-powder interaction. Therefore, the in-
fluences of particle incident speed and powder stream incident angle on
deposition quality can be investigated. Fig. 16 shows a series of single-
pass depositions with the decrease of laser power from 1500 W to
700 W. It can be found that under the same powder incident speed
H. Tan, et al.
Fig. 16. Results of single-pass deposition experiments.
(Vp = 3.9 m s−1), when the powder stream incident angle θ = 65°, the
deposition quality begins to deteriorate at laser power P = 1000 W,
while the powder stream incident angle θ = 50°, the deposition quality
begins to deteriorate at laser power P = 1200 W (20% more laser
power to obtain good metallurgical quality). This indicates that the
larger powder stream incident angle enhances the laser-powder inter-
action and the temperature of the powder reaching the deposition
surface, which is conducive to improving the deposition quality with
the lower laser power. In addition, under the same powder stream in-
cident angle (θ = 65°), when the powder incident speed
Vp = 9.3 m s−1, the deposition quality begins to deteriorate at laser
power P = 1300 W, which requires 30% more laser power than that
with Vp = 3.9 m s−1. This declares that the lower powder incident
speed enhances the laser-powder interaction, and increases the tem-
perature of the powder reaching the deposition surface, which is con-
ducive to improving the deposition quality with the lower laser power.
5. Conclusions
In this study, by using the self radiation effect from the powder
stream heated by the laser irradiation, gray images of the high tem-
perature powder stream was obtained by high-speed photography, and
the gray value was corrected with considering the divergent char-
acteristics of the powder stream to correspond to temperature change.
So a novel experimental method for characterizing the temperature
evolution law of the powder stream under the laser irradiation was
developed. Meanwhile, the mathematical analysis of the high-speed
particle temperature evolution in laser beam was conducted, which
agreed well with the experimental results. We conclude:
(1) With the increase of the particle speed and size, the particle tem-
perature rising rate decreases, and the temperature of the particle
comes to the theoretical deposition surface decreases. With the
decrease of the particle speed from 9.3 m s−1 to 3.9 m s−1, the
particle temperature at theoretical deposition surface is increased
by 144%. With the increase of laser power, the particle heating rate
increases significantly, and the particle temperature at theoretical
deposition surface is proportional to laser power. Therefore, redu-
cing the speed and the size of the particle while increasing the laser
power can effectively increase the particle temperature. With the
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Surface & Coatings Technology 397 (2020) 126061
increase of particle incident angle, the time of laser-powder inter-
action increases, resulting in the increase of the particle tempera-
ture at theoretical deposition surface. The temperature of the 65°
incident particle is increased by 54.4% relative to that of the 50°
incident particle.
(2) Due to the effects of the laser energy distribution along the moving
trajectories of the powder particles, the powder particles that cross
the centre axis of the laser beam and fall near the edge of the laser
spot on theoretical deposition surface have the highest incident
temperature. The final temperature of the particle which fall near
the edge of the laser spot on theoretical deposition surface (track 2)
is 300% higher than that of the particle which do not cross the
centre axis of the laser beam (track 1).
(3) Single-pass deposition experiments indicate that the enhancing in-
teraction effect between laser beam and powder stream can effec-
tively improve deposition quality and save energy. The larger
powder stream incident angle and lower powder incident speed
enhance the laser-powder interaction and the temperature of the
powder reaching the deposition surface, which is conducive to
improving the deposition quality with the lower laser power. 20%
and 30% laser power were saved to obtain good deposition quality
by increasing powder stream incident angle and decreasing the
particle speed, respectively.
Declaration of competing interests
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influ-
ence the work reported in this paper.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Hua Tan:Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing - original
draft.Yanbo Fang:Investigation, Software, Writing - review &
editing.Chongliang Zhong:Conceptualization.Zihao Yuan:Formal
analysis.Wei Fan:Visualization.Zuo Li:Software.Jing Chen:
Methodology.Xin Lin:Supervision.
H. Tan, et al.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the National Key Research and
Development Program of China (No. 2018YFB1106302), Sino-German
Science Foundation (No. GZ1267), the National Natural Science
Foundation of China (No. 51475380) and the Fundamental Research
Funds for the Central Universities (No. 3102019ZX013).
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