环形激光熔覆技术是一项利用中空环形的聚焦高能激光束和光内输送的熔覆材料同轴耦合作用于基体表面的典型材料沉积加工技术。与传统激光熔覆技术相比，它在激光能量利用率、熔覆材料沉积率、光料耦合精度、熔覆过程稳定性和熔覆层结合质量等方面均有大幅度提升，因此备受关注。介绍了基于传统激光熔覆技术发展而来的各类典型加工头的工作特点，在此基础上概述了环形激光熔覆技术的原理和技术优势，进一步分析了环形激光熔覆加工头内部的光路结构对环形激光熔覆技术的影响。重点综述了典型的环形激光熔覆加工头内部的光路结构与聚焦光斑形态之间的关系，基于不同的光路设计原理，对目前具有代表性的加工头进行了分析和归纳，对各类加工头的工作特点进行了论述和总结。除此之外，还分析了焦斑形态变化和能量分布对光料耦合过程的影响，总结了基于环形焦斑辐照下的熔覆材料在不同状态(固相和液相)的典型沉积应用。最后对环形激光熔覆技术未来在激光金属沉积领域的潜在应用及发展趋势做出展望。

Annular laser cladding technology, consisting of a ring-shape focused laser beam and an internal laser coaxial- powder, is an advanced material surface deposition technology. Compared with the conventional laser cladding technology, annular laser cladding technology has attracted tremendous attention due to improvement of the laser energy utilization, increase of deposition rate of the cladding material, accuracy of coupling on laser and cladding material, stability of the cladding process and bonding quality of the cladding layer, respectively. According to the recent research, the working characteristics of various typical processing heads based on the traditional laser cladding technology were introduced in this paper, and the principles and advantages of annular laser cladding technology were summarized herewith. Furthermore, the effects of processing heads on annular laser cladding technology were analyzed. The relationship between the internal optical design of the annular laser cladding head and the morphology of focused spot was reviewed in detail. In addition, on the basis of different optical designs, the internal structures of representative processing heads were analyzed, and therefore their working features were discussed. What’s more, the influences of the change of focused spot shape and the energy distribution on the optical-material coupling process were investigated. Applications of typical deposition about the cladding materials in different states (solid phase or liquid phase) performed by the ring-shaped irradiation were described. At last, a couple of the potential applications and the development trends on the annular laser cladding technology in the field of laser metal deposition were put forward.