SUMMARY

Blown powder directed energy deposition (DED) has quickly risen in popularity due to its unparalleled capabilities to manufacture components that are impossible using traditional methods. The unique ability to control geometric and metallurgical properties of the components is dictated by powder in flow to the melt pool. From this, it is clear that melt pool stability and powder flow are inextricable. However, there remains a lack of in-process methods and data to understand the importance of relevant powder flow characteristics. The proposed work aims to fill this knowledge gap by focusing on the following three research areas: (1) in-situ methods for monitoring single-constituent powder flow characteristics, (2) understanding multi-constituent powder flows, and (3) process control approaches for powder flow variation. Combined, these studies will form a comprehensive understanding of how monitoring systems can be used to characterize varying powder inflow characteristics and how process control approaches may be designed to mitigate deposition variation due to temporally varying feedstock flow.