Design a New Type of Laser Cladding Nozzle and Thermal Fluid Solid Multi-Field Simulation Analysis.

Area of Science:

• Materials Science
• Mechanical Engineering
• Additive Manufacturing

Background:

• Coaxial powder feeding is crucial for metal additive manufacturing.
• Existing laser cladding nozzles face challenges with high temperatures and thermal deformation.
• Advanced heat sources are needed to improve material processing.

Purpose of the Study:

• To design and simulate a new laser cladding nozzle with inner and outer ring powder feeding channels.
• To evaluate the thermal management and powder flow characteristics of the novel nozzle design.
• To assess the performance of the new nozzle with a novel laser heat source for additive manufacturing.

Main Methods:

• Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations using Ansys Workbench and Ansys Fluent.
• Thermal-hydraulic analysis of water-cooling channels.
• Powder flow dynamics simulation for inner and outer feeding channels.
• Thermal cladding process simulation under the new laser heat source.

Main Results:

• Water cooling effectively reduced nozzle temperature to ~200 °C and thermal deformation to 0.35 mm.
• Multiple powder feeding channels demonstrated convergence and achieved an outlet velocity of ~5 mm/s.
• Simulations indicated improved powder melting range and melting pool temperature (~2900 °C).
• Maximum thermal equivalent stress in additive parts reached 1.1407 × 10^10 Pa.

Conclusions:

• The designed nozzle effectively manages thermal loads and deformation.
• The multi-ring powder feeding system enables fabrication of complex geometries with high efficiency.
• The integrated system shows promise for advancing metal additive manufacturing capabilities.