Laser Powder Bed Fusion Additive Manufacturing with In-Situ Laser Peening

A method of building a component using additive manufacturing techniques, comprising:

• depositing and sintering one or more layers of build powder using a laser powder bed fusion (PBF-L) process to form an intermediate consolidated build powder structure having a sintered surface;
• pausing the PBF-L process;
• performing a laser peening process on the sintered surface to induce a desired residual stress profile in selected layers of the intermediate consolidated build powder structure, wherein the laser peening process is performed in situ such that the intermediate consolidated remains on a build plate in a PBF-L machine during the laser peening process;
• resuming the PBF-L process to deposit and sinter one or more layers of additional build powder onto the intermediate consolidated build powder structure to form an additional intermediate consolidated build powder structure having an additional sintered surface;
• repeating the above steps a predetermined number of times to form a finished component, wherein the complete component includes one or more zones of residual stress imparted by the laser peening process in one or more interior layers.