Understanding the Rayleigh instability in humping phenomenon during laser powder bed fusion process

Abstract The periodic undulation of a molten track’s height profile in laser-based powder bed fusion of metals (PBF-LB/M) is a commonly observed phenomena that can cause defects and building failure during the manufacturing process. However a quantitative analysis of such instabilities has not been fully established and so here we used Rayleigh–Plateau theory to determine the stability of a single molten track in PBF-LB/M and tested it with various processing conditions by changing laser power and beam shape. The analysis discovered that normalized enthalpy, which relates to energy input density, determines whether a molten track is initially unstable and if so, the growth rate for the instability. Additionally, whether the growth rate ultimately yields significant undulation depends on the melt duration, estimated by dwell time in our experiment.