Adaptive Slicing for a Five-Axis Laser Aided Manufacturing Process

The Laser Aided Manufacturing Process (LAMP) is an additive process similar to laser cladding. It can produce fully functional parts because the process is material independent. The traditional layered manufacturing (LM) processes with fixed build direction have a limited surface accuracy and their build time is often long due to the deposition of sacrificial support structure. The multiple degrees of freedom allow the LAMP system to build a part without support structure and with better surface quality; however, an automated method for path planning of such a multi-axis system is necessary. An algorithm of adaptive slicing for five-axis LAMP is presented in this paper, which can generate optimal slices to achieve deposition without support structures. Different from the current adaptive slicing, this technique varies not only in layer thickness but also in slicing direction. The slicing direction is determined by a marching algorithm, which is based on the surface normal of points on the side surface of the current slice. Two techniques are adapted to build the overhang between two adjacent layers: thin wall deposition and direct overhang deposition based on surface tension.