Additive manufacturing, in particular the powder bed fusion of metals using a laser beam, has a wide range of possible technical applications. Especially for safety-critical applications, a quality assurance of the components is indispensable. However, time-consuming and costly quality assurance measures, such as computer tomography, represent a barrier for further industrial spreading. For this reason, alternative methods for process anomaly detection using process monitoring systems have been developed. However, the defect detection quality of current methods is limited, as single monitoring systems only detect specific process anomalies. Therefore, a new methodology to evaluate the data of multiple monitoring systems is derived using sensor data fusion. Focus was placed on the causes and the appearance of defects in different monitoring systems (photodiodes, on- and off-axis high-speed cameras, and thermography). Based on this, indicators representing characteristics of the process were developed to reduce the data. Finally, deterministic models for the data fusion within a monitoring system and between the monitoring systems were developed. The result was a defect detection of up to 92% of the melt track defects. The methodology was thus able to determine process anomalies and to evaluate the suitability of a specific process monitoring system for the defect detection.

Powder bed fusion of metals using a laser beam (PBF-LB/M) is a process that enables the fabrication of geometrically complex parts. In this process, a laser beam melts a metallic powder locally to build the desired geometry. The melt pool solidifies rapidly, which results in high cooling rates. These rates vary during the process in line with the geometric characteristics of the part, which leads to a non-uniform microstructure along with anisotropic mechanical properties. The unknown part characteristics prevent the process from being used in safety-critical applications. Thermographic in situ process monitoring provides information about the thermal field, enabling predictions of the resulting material properties. This study presents a novel methodology for the thermographic measurement of cooling rates during the PBF-LB/M process using a high-speed thermographic camera. The cooling rates occurring during the manufacturing of 316L tower-like specimens were measured. The cooling rate decreased with increasing build height, due to the heat accumulation in the parts. The microhardness profile of the parts was tested perpendicularly and parallel to the build direction. A significant decrease in hardness values was observed along the build height. The measured cooling rate was correlated to the microhardness profile of the specimens using a Hall–Petch type relationship. The results show a high level of reproducibility of the cooling rates between different specimens in the same build job as well as between subsequent build jobs. The presented methodology allows studying the effects of the geometry on the cooling rates and the resulting mechanical properties of 316L specimens.

Laser metal deposition with coaxial wire feeding is a directed energy deposition process in which a metal wire is fed to a laser-induced melt pool. Oxidation occurring during the process is a major challenge as it significantly influences the mechanical properties of the produced part. Therefore, an inert gas atmosphere is required in the high temperature process zone, whereby local shielding offers significant cost advantages over an inert gas chamber. In this work, a novel local shielding gas nozzle was developed based on basic methods of fluid mechanics. A gas flow-optimized prototype incorporating internal cooling channels was additively manufactured by laser-powder bed fusion and tested for its effectiveness via deposition experiments. Using the developed local shielding gas concept, an unwanted mixing with the atmosphere due to turbulence was avoided and an oxide-free deposition was achieved when processing a stainless steel ER316LSi wire. Furthermore, the effects of the shielding gas flow rate were investigated, where a negative correlation with the melt pool temperature as well as the weld bead width was demonstrated. Finally, a solid cuboid was successfully built up without oxide inclusions. Overheating of the nozzle due to reflected laser radiation could be avoided by the internal cooling system. The concept, which can be applied to most commercially available coaxial wire deposition heads, represents an important step for the economical application of laser metal deposition.

Additive manufacturing is becoming increasingly important in the construction industry. Wire arc additive manufacturing (WAAM) can be integrated into the selective paste intrusion (SPI) to enable the simultaneous printing of reinforced concrete. The bond behavior of a WAAM reinforcement was investigated with pull-out tests and compared to alternative reinforcement types to analyze the stress transfer between the different components. In the first step, the surface of all the reinforcement types was recorded using a laser-based line scan measuring system. This permits the evaluation of the surface parameters, such as the surface roughness R_q, or the related rib area f_R. The WAAM reinforcement showed a bond behavior in the pull-out tests that was comparable to a reinforcing steel bar. Both the bond stresses achieved, and the occurring scatter of the measurement results at the characteristic slip values were almost the same. Even without existing transverse ribs, the WAAM reinforcement reached maximum bond stresses similar to the reinforcing steel. An evaluation of the surface roughness revealed a linear relationship with the maximum bond stress achieved with a logarithmic scaling of R_q. The bond work W_τ, which is a measure of the system stiffness, showed that WAAM reinforcements and reinforcing steel bars have approximately similar behavior.

Wire arc additive manufacturing (WAAM) is an additive manufacturing process based on gas metal arc welding. It allows the fabrication of large-volume metal components by the controlled deposition and stacking of weld beads. Next to the near-net-shape manufacturing of metal components, WAAM is also applied in the local reinforcement of structural parts, such as shell geometries. However, this procedure can lead to undesired thermally induced distortions. In this work, the distortion caused by the WAAM reinforcement of half-cylinder shell geometries was investigated through experiments and transient thermo-mechanical finite element simulations. In the experiments, the weld beads were applied to the specimen, while its thermal history was measured using thermocouples. The developing distortions were registered using displacement transducers. The experimental data were used to calibrate and validate the simulation. Using the validated model, the temperature field and the distortions of the specimens could be predicted. Subsequently, the simulation was used to assess different deposition patterns and shell thicknesses with regard to the resulting part distortions. The investigations revealed a non-linear relation between shell thickness and distortion. Moreover, the orientation and the sequence of the weld beads had a significant impact on the formation of distortion. However, those effects diminished with an increasing shell thickness.

To produce geometrically complex parts with good mechanical properties, various industries increasingly apply the powder bed fusion of metals using a laser beam. Sufficient control of this laser-based additive manufacturing process is necessary to achieve a reliable development as well as reproducible part properties. Besides adjusting the standard process parameters, such as the laser power or the scanning speed, the process gas is an important parameter that influences the part characteristics. In addition to the inertization of the atmosphere, process by-products can be removed during the manufacturing with a constant gas flow across the build plate. Typically, argon or nitrogen is applied. This study investigated the effects of various argon-helium mixtures in comparison to pure argon gas on the heat balance of process by-products during the processing of a high-strength aluminum alloy by means of Schlieren imaging. The method enables visualizations of the process by-products and is further capable of studying evaporation phenomena. For this purpose, a Schlieren imaging setup was designed and installed in an AconityMINI machine. The experimental results were exploited to validate a simplified heat transfer model introduced in this work. The results indicate that the addition of helium to the process gas lowers the amount of fumes and incandescent spatters and thus could decrease evaporation. Also, it was found that the higher thermal conductivity of helium compared to argon leads to significantly higher cooling of process by-products.