Evaluation of a temperature measurement method developed for laser metal deposition

Measuring temperatures in the material during laser metal deposition (LMD) has an inherent challenge caused by the laser. When thermocouples are radiated by the high intensity laser light overheating occurs which causes the thermocouple to fail. Another identified difficulty is that when the laser passes a thermocouple, emitted light heats the thermocouple to a higher temperature than the material actually experience. In order to cope with these challenges, a method of measuring temperatures during LMD of materials using protective sheets has been developed and evaluated as presented in this paper. The method has substantially decreased the risk of destroying the thermocouple wires during laser deposition. Measurements using 10 mm 2 and 100 mm 2 protective sheets have been compared. These measurements show small variations in the cooling time (∼0.1 s from 850°C to 500°C) between the small and large protective sheets which indicate a negligible effect on the temperature measurement.