Selective Laser Melting (SLM) is one of the Additive Manufacturing (AM) technologies that enables the production of light weight structured components with series identical mechanical properties without the need for part specific tooling or downstream sintering processes, etc. Especially aluminum is suited for such eco-designed components due to its low weight and superior mechanical and chemical properties. However, SLM's state-of-the-art process and cost efficiency is not yet suited for series-production. In order to improve this efficiency it is indispensable to increase the build rate significantly. Thus, aluminum is qualified for high build rate applications using a new prototype machine tool including a 1 kW laser and a multi-beam system

Selective Laser Melting (SLM) is an Additive Manufacturing technology that enables the production of complex shaped individual parts with series identical mechanical properties. Areas of improvement are up to now quality and reproducibility of parts made by SLM due to different kinds of errors. Therefore the integration of a monitoring and control module into a SLM-machine is aspired. The design of such an optical system capable of monitoring high scanning velocities and melt pool dynamics is introduced as a first step.