LAUSR

Abstract Laser energy attenuation greatly influences the amount and distribution of laser energy, which affects the forming precision and quality in laser solid forming. Most of the existing models cannot be used to calculate the laser energy attenuation when the volume fraction of powder particles in the powder stream exceeds a certain threshold. Considering the effects of overlap phenomenon among the powder particles, a model of laser energy attenuation was established by introducing the concept of the effective number of powder particles. The model can realize an accurate calculation of the laser energy attenuation in an arbitrary volume fraction of powder particles. The calculated results show that laser energy attenuation increases nonlinearly along with the powder feeding rate and decreases with the carrier gas flow rate. A simple method for measuring the laser energy attenuation was also proposed and applied. It is found that the calculated energy attenuation agrees well with the measurement. The model was verified valid.