SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR CLOSED-LOOP CONTROL OF LASER CLADDING BY POWDER INJECTION

摘要

A system is disclosed for monitoring and controlling laser cladding process by powder injection in real-time. The invention combines laser cladding techniq ue along with automated direct feedback control to achieve a good quality clad in terms of dimensional and metallurgical characteristics. The system uses optical CCD-based image detectors (20) in the feedback system. The optical C CD- based detectors (20) along with a pattern recognition algorithm is used to determine the clad characteristics in real-time. These characteristics are clad dimensions, solidification rate, and roughness that are fed into a clos ed loop control system (18) to adjust the laser (12) power and table (16) velocity to produce desired clad quality.