Additive manufacturing system and method for validating additively manufactured components

A system for validating and certifying additively manufactured components, comprising:

• a print job entity configured to transmit according to a block-chain protocol, to a distributed validation network, printing specification data for a component that is to be additively manufactured, said network being configured to validate the printing specification data and to add said data, together with a cryptographically encoded checksum according to the block-chain protocol, to a print history log managed by the distributed validation network;
• and
• a 3D printing device configured to implement a generative manufacturing process for the component that is to be additively manufactured, in accordance with the printing specification data transmitted by the print job entity to the 3D printing device,
• wherein the 3D printing device is configured to transmit to the distributed validation network, while the generative manufacturing process is being carried out and in each case following specified manufacturing stages, a plurality of manufacturing parameters that are prevailing in the preceding manufacturing stage, and to implement subsequent manufacturing stages only if the distributed validation network has successfully matched the transmitted manufacturing parameters to the printing specification data stored in the print history log.

A non-transitory computer-readable memory medium, on which computer-executable instructions are stored which, when executed on a data-processing system, prompt the data-processing system to carry out the steps of a validation method, the validation method comprising:

• transmitting according to a block-chain protocol, to a distributed validation network by a print job entity, printing specification data for a component that is to be additively manufactured;
• validating the printing specification data by the distributed validation network, and adding the printing specification data, together with a cryptographically encoded checksum according to the block-chain protocol, to a print history log managed by the distributed validation network;
• transmitting the printing specification data by means of the print job entity to a 3D printing device;
• and
• implementing a generative manufacturing process for the component that is to be additively manufactured, by means of the 3D printing device and in accordance with the transmitted printing specification data,
• wherein, while the generative manufacturing process is being carried out, in each case following specified manufacturing stages, a plurality of manufacturing parameters prevailing in the preceding manufacturing stage are transmitted to the distributed validation network, and
• wherein subsequent manufacturing stages are released by the distributed validation network in order to be implemented in the 3D printing device only if the transmitted manufacturing parameters have been successfully matched to the printing specification data stored in the print history log.