Laser Power Accuracy of Additive Manufacturing Systems - A Round Robin Study

Published

September 11, 2023

Author(s)

Brian Simonds, Kyle Rogers, Paul A. Williams

Abstract

High power lasers are at the core of metal additive manufacturing (AM) systems and the accurate delivery of laser energy is critical to part performance. We have performed a round robin style survey of U.S. AM equipment across industry, academia, and government facilities. Using a low uncertainty (1.3 %, k=2) thermal power meter, we assessed the accuracy to which these systems delivered laser power and how accurate the process engineer was able to measure this with their power meter. We have found that although on average instruments accurately deliver laser power, there is a large spread in values (5.6% – 14.1%), which poses a heretofore unknown challenge for process development.

Proceedings Title

Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on New Developments and Applications in Optical Radiometry (NEWRAD 2023)

Conference Dates

September 11-15, 2023

Conference Location

Teddington, GB

Conference Title

15th International Conference on New Developments and Applications in Optical Radiometry (NEWRAD 2023)

Pub Type

Conferences

Download Paper

Local Download

Citation

Simonds, B. , Rogers, K. and Williams, P. (2023), Laser Power Accuracy of Additive Manufacturing Systems - A Round Robin Study, Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on New Developments and Applications in Optical Radiometry (NEWRAD 2023), Teddington, GB, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=936455 (Accessed October 14, 2025)