Reconstruction of Molten Pool Flow Fields from High-Speed Video Using Physics-Informed Neural Networks

Abstract

Molten pool flow significantly influences bead geometry, defect formation, and solidification microstructure in wire-arc directed energy deposition (DED). However, direct flow sensing remains an open challenge due to extreme temperatures, intense arc illumination, and complex flow patterns. Traditional research has relied either on computationally intensive fluid dynamics simulations, which require assumed boundary conditions and lack empirical anchoring, or on vision-based tracer particle tracking, which yields sparse, noisy, and physically unconstrained velocity estimates. This work bridges these two paradigms by reconstructing physics-constrained 2D surface flow fields from high-speed imaging of a GTAW-based wire-arc DED process under distinct flow regimes: quasi-steady convection and periodic droplet impact. The pipeline begins with homography correction to calibrate the oblique camera view, followed by dense optical flow extraction to provide raw velocity observations. For quasi-steady pools, a physics-informed neural network (PINN) reconstructs the surface velocity field by jointly enforcing data fidelity, incompressible Navier-Stokes momentum equations, no-penetration boundary conditions, and an arc-forcing prior through composite loss minimization. For pools subject to periodic droplet impact, a phase-conditioned time-dependent PINN is further developed to resolve the cyclic flow evolution throughout the impact period. This work provides a unified framework that bridges high-speed visual sensing and fluid mechanics, enabling physics-grounded flow diagnostics for wire-arc DED processes.