Directed Energy Deposition using wire feedstock (wire DED) offers strong potential for industrial-scale metal additive manufacturing but remains limited by the lack of flexible and easily deployable deposition systems. In particular, current solutions are often constrained in terms of integration, scalability, and adaptability to varying process configurations. In this context, coaxial wire-fed laser heads offer several advantages beyond direction-independent deposition, including improved process stability and a more controlled and reproducible energy input around the wire.

In this work, we present the development of a compact coaxial wire laser DED head designed to operate up to 12 kW, across a wide range of conditions: with different fibers, lasers, industrial environments, and material configurations. The architecture relies on beam shaping to enable relevant energy distribution in the ring, leading also to a compact and lightweight (5kg) design suitable for integration on robotic arms, while reducing industrial constraints related to system footprint and complexity.

The overall design of the deposition head is first presented. Then, we provide a few process numerical simulations conducted, to investigate the influence of process parameters on melt pool behavior and stability across different configurations and also identify exactly the most relevant processing parameters. Following this development phase, first experimental results are presented, including deposition trials on Ti-based alloy and more materials realized at high power, demonstrating bead quality, and robustness of this head.