General Electric Company
Scan path generation for a rotary additive manufacturing machine

Abstract:

Some embodiments facilitate creation of an industrial asset item via a rotary additive manufacturing process. For example, a build plate may rotate about a vertical axis and move, relative to a print arm, along the vertical axis during printing. An industrial asset item definition data store may contain at least one electronic record defining the industrial asset item. A frame creation computer processor may slice the data defining the industrial asset item to create a series of two-dimensional, locally linear frames helically arranged as a spiral staircase of steps (and each step may be oriented normal to the vertical axis. Indications of the series of two-dimensional frames may then be output to be provided to a rotary three-dimensional printer.