Effects of tilt angle between laser nozzle and substrate on bead morphology in multi-axis laser cladding

Laser cladding has been increasingly used for repairing and remanufacturing critical and high-value components due to its unique benefits such as high solidification rates and a small heat-affected zone. In laser cladding, tilt angle between a laser nozzle and a substrate has a significant impact on deposited bead morphology. To ensure the quality of laser cladding, the effects of tilt angle on bead morphology are investigated in this study. An analytical model is introduced to predict bead shapes for three tilting postures. In the first case, a substrate remains horizontal while the nozzle is tilted. All three parameters, including width, height, and peak point offset, will be influenced by the laser beam power distribution. In the second case, a substrate is tilted while the laser nozzle is kept axial to the substrate’s normal, the peak point offset will ascend along with the increasing of the tilt angle (gravity effect). In the third case, the laser nozzle remains vertical while the substrate is tilted, which leads to variations of cladding width, cladding height, and especially peak point shifting value. These parameters will be dependent on the integrated effect of gravity and the laser beam power distribution. A set of experiments is conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed model. This study illustrates that the variation of cladding width and height with the tilt angle can be accurately calculated by the predictive model, and that the peak point shifting value is roughly smaller than 5% of cladding width when the tilt angle is less than 30°. These findings show that trajectory planning of multi-axis laser cladding can be optimized using an acceptable range of tilt angle between the laser nozzle and substrate.