RTX Corporation
POWDER BED FUSION MONITORING

Abstract:

A method of monitoring an additive manufacturing build process includes first and second phases. The first phase includes depositing a powder layer onto a powder bed. A topographical profile of the powder bed is captured with a profilometer. An image of the powder bed is captured with a camera. The image and topographical profile are combined to create a data set that is transferred to a machine learning algorithm. A set of training data is generated and includes a set of deviations from a nominal model. The second phase includes depositing a powder layer onto the powder bed. An image of the powder bed is captured and compared to the set of training data. Deviations from the nominal model of the first powder bed are determined. Any deviations that are greater than a numerical threshold are labelled and identified as a defect which includes its type and severity.