Laser metal deposition process

Laser metal deposition process belongs to the directed energy deposition class of additive manufacturing process that is capable of producing highly complex part directly from the three dimensional (3D) computer aided design file of the component by adding materials layer after layers. Laser metal deposition process is a very important additive manufacturing process and it is the only class of additive manufacturing process that can be used to repair valued component parts which were not repairable in the past. Also because this additive manufacturing process can handle multiple materials simultaneously, it is used to produce part with functionally graded material. Some of the features of the laser metal deposition process are described in this chapter. Some experimental studies on the laser metal deposition of Titanium alloy- composite are also presented.