Sigma Labs Inc (SASI)

[VisionaryInc]

Wednesday May 20th, 2015

RAPID 2015 Conference

2:30 pm – 2:55 pm
Additive Manufacturing in Aerospace Production
Donald Godfrey, Engineering Fellow, Honeywell/Advanced Manufacturing & Mark Cola, President and CEO, Sigma Labs, Inc

Despite the significant promise of 3D Printing technologies such as Direct Metal Laser Sintering – DMLS – three problems still remain that inhibit further adoption of the technology: metallurgical quality, geometric accuracy, and production speed/productivity. Measuring the geometry of a part during the direct metal laser sintering additive manufacturing process is a major challenge of in-process quality monitoring. This presentation describes a novel technique based on well-known image processing algorithms to extract calibrated geometry information from a photograph of each layer of the part. It will also demonstrate that the technique is analogous to standard measurement techniques such as optical or mechanical coordinate measuring machines (CMM) or X-ray computed tomography (CT). The technique described here is advantageous over standard techniques for several reasons. It provides data as the part is being manufactured and reduces the need for a separate geometry inspection step. Part support structure does not interfere with geometry measurement as it would in CMM or CT measurements. The technique also allows for measuring internal geometries not accessible with a CMM. Lastly, validation with respect to other measurement techniques is discussed.