Patent ID: 6203861
Filing Date: 2001-03-20
Classification: B22F,B33Y,C04B,C23C,Y02P

Abstract:
A method of fabricating three dimensional(3-D) parts from metal and composite materials, comprising the steps of:(ai) forming a laser beam having an axis;(aii) splitting the laser beam into a first beam and a second beam;(aiii) forming a space between the first beam and the second beam;(aiv) focusing both the first beam and the second beam into a recombined beam at a spot location;(bi ) feeding material powder through a restrictive opening to form a material powder supply having a selected powder flow rate;(bii ) mixing the material powder supply with a carrier gas to form an flow mixture;(biii) feeding the mixture into the spot location coaxially to the laser beam;(c) forming a first deposition layer by directly melting the material powder with the laser beam on a surface supported by an XYZ workstage platform that translates in the XY direction; and(d) forming a second deposition layer on top of the first deposition layer with said steps(aiv) and (biii) and by displacing the XYZ workstage platform in the Z plane direction, wherein said steps (aiv), (bi), (bii), (biii) and (c) are used to determine length, width, and thickness of each layer in order to form the 3-D parts.