Impact of beam shaping on melt pool behavior in laser processing of stainless steel 316L: Thermal analysis using multispectral imaging

Using calibrated multispectral imaging, this study analyzes how ring-shaped laser beam profiles change melt pool temperature distributions in laser processing of stainless steel 316L compared to a Gaussian beam. Gaussian beams produce a concentrated heat zone with linearly increasing peak temperature, while ring-shaped profiles shift the melting behavior and produce characteristic half-moon-shaped temperature distributions, with direct implications for process stability and beam shape selection in PBF-LB/M.