This paper aims to explore the coupling mechanism of laser and powder flow in the laser cladding process.The influence of powder feeding speed on powder convergence characteristics was investigated by a numerical simulation of laser cladding powder injection.This simulation demonstrated that the powder flow had good convergence as its focus diameter gradually decreased with the increase of powder feeding speed.Through the analysis of laser spot simulation diagrams,the relationship between the laser spot size and the focus diameter of the powder flow was examined and further verified by a laser cladding experiment.The results indicated that the cladding morphology was better when the focus diameter of the powder flow was approximate to the laser spot diameter,but it became worse as the focus diameter decreased and the heat affected area of matrix increased by speeding up powder feeding.The optimum feeding speed was confirmed to be 17.0 m/s.The findings provide a theoretical basis for the powder utilization ratio and the morphology control of laser cladding.[JP4]