AccScience Publishing / ESAM / Online First / DOI: 10.36922/ESAM025420029
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ORIGINAL RESEARCH ARTICLE

Understanding melt pool characteristics as a means for reducing build layout quality variations in laser-based powder bed fusion: An approach toward spatial parameter compensations

Jaivindra Singh1 ,  J. P. Oliveira1 ,  Hunter Taylor2,3 ,  Jesus Rivas2* ,  Jorge Mireles2 ,  Oscar Garcia2 ,  Ryan Wicker2,4
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1 CENIMAT/I3N, Department of Materials Science, NOVA School of Science and Technology, Universidade NOVA de Lisboa, Caparica, Portugal
2 W.M. Keck Center for 3D Innovation, The University of Texas at El Paso, El Paso, Texas, United States of America
3 Tailored Alloys LLC, Youngstown, Ohio, United States of America
4 Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, The University of Texas at El Paso, El Paso, Texas, United States of America
ESAM 2026, 2(1), 025420029 https://doi.org/10.36922/ESAM025420029
Received: 15 October 2025 | Revised: 11 November 2025 | Accepted: 12 November 2025 | Published online: 4 February 2026
© 2026 by the Author(s). This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )
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Abstract

This study investigates the impact of build platform location on melt pool variability during laser-based powder bed fusion of metals. The incident angle and gas flow are hypothesized to influence melt pool penetration and contribute to spatial variations in the melt pool. Results show that the typical build strategy using the same material-dependent processing parameters for all parts throughout the build chamber produces parts with location-dependent properties. An overarching goal of the present work was to attempt to fabricate similar parts at different locations within the build chamber by identifying processing parameters that produce similar melt pool depths at these locations. It was further hypothesized that by normalizing process parameters through similar melt pool depths, similar porosity counts could be achieved at these locations, thus mitigating process-induced variability. The study emphasizes the necessity of spatial parameter adjustments to minimize variability across different locations within the build platform, as well as the requirement for uniform gas flow across the build chamber, thereby eliminating gas flow-dependent variations from the analysis.

Graphical abstract
Keywords
Laser powder bed fusion
Build location
Test artifact
Surface roughness
Porosity
Funding
The current work was funded by FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P., in the scope of the project’s LA/P/0037/2020, UIDP/50025/2020, and UIDB/50025/2020 of the Associate Laboratory Institute of Nanostructures, Nanomodeling, and Nanofabrication – i3N, and by award 70NANB21H006 from the U.S. Department of Commerce, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Additional support was provided by strategic investments through discretionary UTEP Keck Center funds and the Mr. and Mrs. MacIntosh Murchison Chair I in Engineering Endowment at UTEP.
Conflict of interest
J. P. Oliveira serves as an Editorial Board Member of this journal but was not in any way involved in the editorial and peer-review process conducted for this paper, directly or indirectly. Separately, other authors declared that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have influenced the work reported in this paper.
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Engineering Science in Additive Manufacturing, Electronic ISSN: 3082-849X Published by AccScience Publishing
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