Tabulated Beam Profile

This AlSi10Mg tutorial uses a measured nLight AFX Index 6 profile exported by PRIMES LaserDiagnosticsSoftware. It demonstrates conversion, normalization, bilinear interpolation, and use of measured planar data without implementing a new C++ model.

AlSi10Mg top-surface temperature for the measured tabulated beam profile. The black and white contours denote the 850 K solidus and 870 K liquidus, respectively.

Physical setup

  • AlSi10Mg properties from $ADDITIVEFOAM_ETC/materials/AlSi10Mg.cfg.
  • One tabulated lateral heat-source distribution measured with PRIMES equipment.
  • A projected axial distribution.
  • A converter that transforms the vendor CSV export into AdditiveFOAM table format.

Run 

cp -r "$ADDITIVEFOAM_TUTORIALS/tabulated" "$FOAM_RUN/tabulated"
cd "$FOAM_RUN/tabulated"
./Allrun

The first command in Allrun is:

primesToAdditiveFoam constant/primes-export.csv constant/beamProfile.txt

The generated beamProfile.txt is intentionally reproducible and is regenerated every run.

Important inputs

File Purpose
constant/primes-export.csv Original PRIMES measurement export
constant/beamProfile.txt AdditiveFOAM table generated by Allrun
constant/heatSourceDict Tabulated-model dimensions, projection, absorption, and sampling
constant/scanPath Beam position, time, and power
system/controlDict Run controls and optional Function Objects

Workflow

The first command in Allrun converts the measured profile:

primesToAdditiveFoam constant/primes-export.csv constant/beamProfile.txt

The resulting table is read by this model configuration:

tabulatedCoeffs
{
    file       "beamProfile.txt";
    dimensions (250e-6 250e-6 50e-6);
    A          0;
    B          1;
    nPoints    (10 10 10);
}

The table describes relative planar intensity. The scan path supplies total incident power and the absorption model supplies the absorbed fraction. dimensions must cover the profile support; points outside the tabulated nodal domain receive zero weight.

To use another measured profile:

  1. Preserve the original vendor export.
  2. Run the converter and inspect its grid, spacing, integral, radii, and suggested dimensions.
  3. Plot or independently integrate the generated table.
  4. Set lateral source dimensions large enough to include the non-zero support.

The converter expects PRIMES metadata including pixel counts and pitches. It accepts the declared CSV separator and decimal commas in scalar fields.

Outputs

Open the reconstructed case in ParaView and visualize qDot to inspect the interpolated planar profile and T and alpha.solid to inspect the thermal response.

Absorbed power, melt-pool dimensions, solidification data, and ExaCA histories are covered by the baseline output workflows.