Arcam AB fka AMAVF

[charlie T colton]

Real-time monitoring of laser powder bed fusion

I believe that if we look, we'll see more information about laser melt monitoring with x-ray. A good example is in the links below. The important part that I'm concerned with is "Who holds the patents?"

As Arcam is using x-ray monitoring with electron beams in production models with patent protection, it seems that they have the lead if the patent language covers lasers as the energy beam source. It looks good to me but of course, I may be biased. I believe that Arcam (and GE) has been working on this for a while.

Recent independent academic work published in Nature - Real-time monitoring of laser powder bed fusion process using high-speed X-ray imaging and diffraction - Published online: 15 June 2017

The same work published at online at the US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health website - Real-time monitoring of laser powder bed fusion process using high-speed X-ray imaging and diffraction - Published online: 2017 Jun 15

From the US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health article:

Abstract

We employ the high-speed synchrotron hard X-ray imaging and diffraction techniques to monitor the laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) process of Ti-6Al-4V in situ and in real time. We demonstrate that many scientifically and technologically significant phenomena in LPBF, including melt pool dynamics, powder ejection, rapid solidification, and phase transformation, can be probed with unprecedented spatial and temporal resolutions. In particular, the keyhole pore formation is experimentally revealed with high spatial and temporal resolutions. The solidification rate is quantitatively measured, and the slowly decrease in solidification rate during the relatively steady state could be a manifestation of the recalescence phenomenon. The high-speed diffraction enables a reasonable estimation of the cooling rate and phase transformation rate, and the diffusionless transformation from ß to a ’ phase is evident. The data present here will facilitate the understanding of dynamics and kinetics in metal LPBF process, and the experiment platform established will undoubtedly become a new paradigm for future research and development of metal additive manufacturing.



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For the record, we've been discussing actual patents granted. Arcam has several patent applications directly related to this topic under review as well.