Understanding powder transport mechanisms in directed energy deposition via design of experiments

Laser beam powder metal directed energy deposition (DED-LB/Powder) is a metal additive manufacturing (AM) technique that can build, repair, and remanufacture metal components. The objective of this study is to investigate the behaviour of the powder supply system, based on a rotating disk powder metering and pneumatic conveying. The powder mass flow rate was related to different levels of carrier gas flow rate and perforated disc rotation. A sensor acquisition system was designed to measure and acquire the boundary conditions (BCs) exterior to the powder feeder system, in order to identify possible external noise. Based on the data analysis, it was possible to identify different feeding conditions as the input parameters were varied and how the responses were affected by them.