3D printing method of forming a bulk solid structure element by cold spray

A method of forming a three dimensional object, comprising the steps of:

• providing a nozzle of a cold spray gun for delivering a stream of powdered material to a substrate with said powdered material having a temperature below the melting point of the powdered material;
• providing a light source for projecting at least one focused light strip;
• aligning the cold spray gun at an angle θ1 to the substrate;
• delivering the powdered material at a supersonic speed to the substrate thereby causing the powdered material to adhere to the substrate for forming a first layer of material upon the substrate;
• projecting the at least one focused light strip onto the first layer at the substrate for defining its profile geometry;
• generating a camera image of the at least one focused light strip projected onto the first layer of deposited material to determine the amount of change of the profile geometry caused by the first layer of deposited material adhered to the substrate by analyzing contours of the at least one focused light strip projected onto the first layer of deposited material, wherein analyzing contours of the focused light strips projected onto the first layer of deposited material comprises comparing a profile of the focused light strip captured in the camera image to a straight line, thereby determining a distortion of the focused light strip;
• extracting real parameters of a surface of the first layer of deposited material from the determined distortion using geometric expressions, the extracting real parameters including establishing an angle of the first layer of material relative to the substrate from the optical distortion of the profile geometry determined by the camera image of the contours of the at least one focused light strip;
• reorienting the cold spray gun based upon the profile geometry as determined by the camera image of the contours of the at least one focused light strip to an angle θ2 being offset from an axis defined by the first layer of material for optimizing delivery of the powdered material over the first layer of material;
• and
• delivering a second layer of material onto the first layer of material with the nozzle of the cold spray gun oriented at the angle θ2.