The Directed Energy Deposition (DED) process referred here isa metal additive manufacturing process in which metal is added tothe part or product, layer by layer, to rapidly manufacture or formthe part or product to a predetermined shape. It is a technique thatcan produce fully dense functional metal parts or tools directly froma CAD system and eliminate the need for intermediate steps. Anexample of DED process discussed in this paper is shown in Fig. 1.A DED process is especially beneficial for high performancemetals, such as fully dense titanium alloys, Inconel, and tool steel,which are difficult for traditional CNC machines or rapid proto-typing (RP) machines to fabricate. For example, titanium and itsalloys have proven to be technically superior and cost-effectivematerials for a wide variety of aerospace, industrial, marine, med-ical, and commercial applications. Parts or products cast and/ormachined from these high performance metals are very expensive,partly due to the processing difficulties and complexities duringmachining and casting. DED processes however have been foundto be very cost effective because they can produce near-net shapeparts from these high performance metals with little or no machin-ing. However, as DED processes cannot build support materials,multi-axis capability is critical in metal deposition technologies.The hybrid manufacturing process here combines laser deposition
and machining processes to develop a rapid manufacturing processto build functional metal parts. This paper summarizes the researchand development of such a hybrid process, including modeling andunderstanding of the direct laser deposition process for distortion,and automated process planning of the hybrid process.