Methods and thermal structures for additive manufacturing
AssigneeGeneral Electric Company
InventorsScott Alan Gold, Zachary David Fieldman, Daniel Joerger
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Abstract
The present disclosure generally relates to methods for additive manufacturing (AM) that utilize thermal dissipation support structures in the process of building objects, as well as novel thermal dissipation support structures to be used within these AM processes. The thermal dissipation support structures include at least one sacrificial structure that is separated from the object by a portion of unfused powder. The sacrificial structure increases a thermal dissipation rate of at least a portion of the object such that such that thermal gradients in the object remain below a specified threshold that prevents deformation of the object.
Claims21
A method for fabricating an object, comprising:
- (a) irradiating a layer of powder in a powder bed with an energy beam defining a laser in a series of scan lines to form a fused region;
- (b) providing a subsequent layer of powder over the powder bed by passing a recoater arm over the powder bed from a first side of the powder bed to a second side of the powder bed;
- (c) repeating steps (a) and (b) until the object and at least one support structure is formed in the powder bed, wherein the object defines a base portion, a middle portion, and a top portion atop one another, and wherein the support structure defines a surface conforming to one or more portions of the object,
- wherein the at least one support structure includes a sacrificial structure separated from the object by a portion of unfused powder, and wherein a rate of thermal dissipation from areas of each cross-section of the object are increased by a presence of the sacrificial structure to maintain a thermal dissipation rate of each cross-section such that thermal gradients in the object remain below a specified threshold that prevents deformation of the object, and
- (d) determining the rate of thermal dissipation of the object;
- and
- (e) adjusting a dimension of the sacrificial structure based on the determined rate of thermal dissipation of the object.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.