In situ and real time quality control in additive manufacturing process

• Main Authors: Wasmer, Kilian, Vakili Farahani, Farzad, Shevchik, Sergey, Violakis, Georgios, Vaucher, Sébastien
• Format: Patent
• Language: English
• Published: 03.11.2020
• Subjects: ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING TECHNOLOGY; ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING, i.e. MANUFACTURING OFTHREE-DIMENSIONAL [3-D] OBJECTS BY ADDITIVE DEPOSITION, ADDITIVEAGGLOMERATION OR ADDITIVE LAYERING, e.g. BY 3-D PRINTING,STEREOLITHOGRAPHY OR SELECTIVE LASER SINTERING; AFTER-TREATMENT OF THE SHAPED PRODUCTS, e.g. REPAIRING; ARRANGEMENTS FOR MEASURING TWO OR MORE VARIABLES NOT COVEREDIN A SINGLE OTHER SUBCLASS; CASTING; INVESTIGATING OR ANALYSING MATERIALS BY DETERMINING THEIRCHEMICAL OR PHYSICAL PROPERTIES; MAKING METALLIC POWDER; MANUFACTURE OF ARTICLES FROM METALLIC POWDER; MEASURING; MEASURING NOT SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR A SPECIFIC VARIABLE; MEASURING OR TESTING NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR; PERFORMING OPERATIONS; PHYSICS; POWDER METALLURGY; SHAPING OF MATERIAL IN A PLASTIC STATE, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDEDFOR; SHAPING OR JOINING OF PLASTICS; TARIFF METERING APPARATUS; TESTING; TRANSPORTING; WORKING METALLIC POWDER; WORKING OF PLASTICS; WORKING OF SUBSTANCES IN A PLASTIC STATE, IN GENERAL

Use of a sensor read out system with at least one fiber optical sensor, which is connected via at least one signal line to a processing unit as part of an additive manufacturing setup, for in situ and real time quality control of a running additive manufacturing process. Acoustic emission is measured via the at least one fiber optical sensor in form of fibers with Bragg grating, fibre interferometer or Fabry-Perot structure, followed by a signal transfer and an analysis of the measured signals in the processing unit, estimation of the sintering or melting process quality due to correlation between sintering or melting quality and measured acoustic emission signals and subsequent adaption of ion and electron beams, microwave or laser sintering or melting parameters of a ion and electron beams, microwave or laser electronics of the additive manufacturing setup in real times via a feedback loop as a result of the measured acoustic emission signals after interpretation with an algorithmic framework in the processing unit.