Quality control of additive manufactured parts
AssigneeThe Boeing Company
InventorSteven Matthew Gunther
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Methods and apparatuses to fabricate additive manufactured parts with in-process monitoring are described. As parts are formed layer-by-layer, a 3D measurement of each layer or layer group may be acquired. The acquisition of dimensional data may be performed at least partially in parallel with the formation of layers. The dimensional data may be accumulated until the part is fully formed, resulting in a part that was completely inspected as it was built. The as-built measurement data may be compared to the input geometrical description of the desired part shape. Where the part fails to meet tolerance, it may be amended during the build process or rejected.
Claims16
A manufacturing and quality control method for fabricating a fabricated part from a series of layers, the method comprising:
- sequentially forming one or more layers of the series of layers, using additive manufacturing from a stock material and based upon a virtual 3D model, to form an at least partially completed in-process part;
- synchronously acquiring a layer-wise surface representation of the one or more layers, using 3D optical scanning;
- repeating the sequentially forming and the synchronously acquiring until the series of layers is fully formed into the fabricated part;
- assembling the layer-wise surface representations of each of the one or more layers of the fabricated part into an as-built 3D model of the fabricated part that is fully formed;
- comparing the virtual 3D model to the as-built 3D model, wherein the comparing includes calculating a measured difference between the as-built 3D model and the virtual 3D model;
- and
- indicating a need for post-fabrication processing if the measured difference is outside of a predetermined tolerance limit, wherein the post-fabrication processing includes one or more of removing a spurious feature from the fabricated part, removing a support structure, surface finishing the fabricated part, annealing the fabricated part, hardening the fabricated part, cleaning the fabricated part, or coating the fabricated part.
A manufacturing and quality control method for fabricating a fabricated part from a series of layers, the method comprising:
- sequentially forming layers of the series of layers, using additive manufacturing from a stock material and based upon an input geometric description, to fully form the fabricated part;
- synchronously acquiring, using 3D optical scanning, a 3D surface representation of each layer of the fabricated part, wherein for each layer, synchronously acquiring includes 3D optical scanning a respective layer after the respective layer is formed and before any next layer of the series of layers is formed;
- assembling the 3D surface representations of the series of layers of the fabricated part into an as-built geometric description of the fabricated part that is fully formed;
- comparing, by a computer, the input geometric description to the as-built geometric description, wherein the comparing includes calculating a measured difference between the as-built geometric description and the input geometric description and comparing a predetermined tolerance limit to the measured difference;
- and
- indicating a need for post-fabrication processing if the measured difference is outside of a predetermined tolerance limit, wherein the post-fabrication processing includes one or more of removing a spurious feature from the fabricated part, removing a support structure, surface finishing the fabricated part, annealing the fabricated part, hardening the fabricated part, cleaning the fabricated part, or coating the fabricated part.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.