3-D Design and numerical simulation of two-phase flow in the laser rapid prototyping coaxial powder delivery system

The metal powder direct and rapid prototyping technology is one of the most developing methods in the laser rapid prototyping technique. The coaxial powder delivery system is the key technique. The purpose of this paper is to introduce a new type of coaxial powder delivery system and simulate the metal powder and shield gas flow in the powder nozzle. 2-D and 3-D model of the new coaxial powder delivery system are established. Then gas-solid two-phase flow model and the k-∊ turbulent model are selected to simulate the flow of metal powder in powder nozzle. The Euler-Lagrange method is used in the simulating computation. The results show that the new coaxial powder delivery system has stable performance, uniform powder flux, high cooling efficiency, and long useful life.