Melting and resolidification of a subcooled, two-component metal powder bed subjected to temporal Gaussian heat flux is investigated analytically in this paper. The integral approximate solutions for preheating, melting with shrinkage, and resolidification are obtained. An increase in heat source intensity or powder bed porosity will result in an increase of the melt pool depth, melt pool temperature, and the overall processing time. The melt pool becomes shallower with increasing subcooling because more heat flux is needed to melt the powder. A change in the liquid phase porosity will increase the process time only slightly and have a negligible effect on the amount of melted material produced. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.