  In this contribution, we validate a physical model based on a transient
temperature equation (including latent heat) w.r.t. the experimental set
AMB2018-02 provided within the additive manufacturing benchmark series,
established at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, USA. We aim
at predicting the following quantities of interest: width, depth, and length of
the melt pool by numerical simulation and report also on the obtainable
numerical results of the cooling rate. We first assume the laser to posses a
double ellipsoidal shape and demonstrate that a well calibrated, purely thermal
model based on isotropic thermal conductivity is able to predict all the
quantities of interest, up to a deviation of maximum 7.3\% from the
experimentally measured values.
  However, it is interesting to observe that if we directly introduce, whenever
available, the measured laser profile in the model (instead of the double
ellipsoidal shape) the investigated model returns a deviation of 19.3\% from
the experimental values. This motivates a model update by introducing
anisotropic conductivity, which is intended to be a simplistic model for heat
material convection inside the melt pool. Such an anisotropic model enables the
prediction of all quantities of interest mentioned above with a maximum
deviation from the experimental values of 6.5\%.
  We note that, although more predictive, the anisotropic model induces only a
marginal increase in computational complexity.
