Heat treatment to anneal residual stresses during additive manufacturing

A method of producing a product through additive manufacturing with heat treatment, the method comprising the steps of:

• providing a substrate;
• positioning a layer of powder particles on said substrate producing an interface between said layer of powder particles and said substrate;
• using a laser to melt said powder particles with a laser beam impressed with a two dimensional pattern containing image information from a first layer to be printed in making the product, to fuse said powder particles with said substrate in a desired shape and pattern producing fused powder particles;
• heat treating said fused powder particles with an additional laser beam to achieve heat treatment of the product, prior to laying down additional new layers of material;
• and
• wherein the heat treatment comprises an annealing operation.

A method of producing a product through additive manufacturing with heat treatment, the method comprising the steps of:

• providing a substrate;
• positioning a layer of powder particles on said substrate producing an interface between said layer of powder particles and said substrate;
• melting said powder particles with a first laser beam to fuse said powder particles with said substrate, and thus producing fused powder particles;
• performing an annealing operation with a second laser beam impressed with a two dimensional pattern containing image information, to achieve heat treatment of at least a portion of the first layer of the product in accordance with the two dimensional pattern, prior to laying down additional new layers of material;
• providing a new layer of powdered material on top of the first layer of fused powder particles subsequent to the heat treatment;
• and
• repeating said melting and annealing in a layer-by-layer fashion, until the part is completed.