Laser hardening is a surface hardening process which enables high quality results due to the controllability of the energy input. The hardened area is determined by the heat distribution caused by the intensity profile of the laser beam. However, commonly used top-hat laser beams do not provide an ideal temperature profile. Therefore, in this paper the beam profile, and thus the temperature profile, is optimized using freeform optics. The intensity distribution is modified to generate a top-hat temperature profile on the surface. The results of laser hardening with the optimized distribution are thereupon compared with results using a top-hat intensity distribution.

Titanium alloys are used instead of steel and nickel-based alloys to lower the weight of turbines whenever it is applicable. Due to the high manufacturing costs of titanium, near-net-shape processes like laser metal deposition (LMD) processes are an approach to improve the production of new turbomachinery components. Additionally, these processes are also suitable for repair. LMD uses wire or powder as additional material. When highly reactive materials like titanium grade 5 (Ti6Al4V) are processed, wire-based laser metal deposition (LMD-W) processes are superior to powder-based processes due to the smaller reactive surface. Nowadays, three main challenges exist when titanium grade 5 (Ti6Al4V) is processed by additive manufacturing (AM): First of all, the high affinity to oxygen combined with the increased brittleness of the material in case of a contamination with already low amounts of oxygen has to be faced. Second, the material is prone to distortion induced by thermal stress during the manufacturing process. Finally, the material has a complex bimodal microstructure, which has to be adjusted properly to generate optimal strength. The following publication will present how these technical challenges are faced. The heat input into the workpiece and thereby the area that has to be covered with shielding gas is minimized. This is done by minimizing the laser spot size as well as adjusting the travel speed. Thereby a local shielding of the process was realized. With this optimized process, it was possible to generate several specimens for metallurgical analysis.