Laser-Based Direct Metal Deposition (LBDMD) is a blown-powder laser deposition process
which can produce fully-dense and metallurgicaly sound parts by a layered manufacturing
method. Since a deposition head equipped with discontinuous radially symmetric nozzles has the
potential to be tilted without influence of the gravity on the powder stream shape, it can be used
for multi-axis deposition. The shape of the gas-powder stream with respect to the shape of laser
beam and the size of the molten pool, have a large influence on the size and shape of the buildup.
They determine the geometrical accuracy and the surface quality of the buildup. This paper
examines gas-powder flow from radially symmetric nozzles using computational fluid dynamics
method. For verification purpose the powder flow was investigated by a visualization method
and powder concentration distribution was analyzed using image processing technique. The
obtained results are in good agreement with numerical model.Mechanical Engineerin