By: Lijun Song and Jyoti Mazumder
Center for Laser Aided Intelligent Manufacturing, University of Michigan
The ability to monitor the elemental composition in real time for laser aided rapid manufacturing is essential for both estimation of elemental losses and elemental control. Traditionally X-ray fluorescence (XRF) and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) have been widely used for element analysis after the parts were fabricated. However, these two methods are time consuming due to the sample preparation and post processing. Thanks to the laser induced plasma, which is a by-product of direct metal deposition process, a real-time multi-element analysis is possible by calibrating the plasma parameters.