Inline quality control system for a reliable additive manufacturing layer-by-layer inspection

Abstract

Additive Manufacturing (AM) is one of the genuine hopes for the forth industrial revolution since digital data is controlling the whole layered production process. However, to be the driving force behind a new industrial revolution the quality, reliability and reproducibility of the AM parts must be 100% assured. In the actual context of the state of the art in the field of Quality Control (QC) for AM Powder Bed Fusion (PBF) processes, taking into consideration the deficiencies of the actual approaches, first an inline QC system's tasks identification approach was developed. Based on it, a comprehensive concept for an inline QC system was elaborated. Furthermore, the development and implementation of the system components were carried through. The results of the conducted research work, closing a gap in the state of the art, culminate into a novel and innovative inline QC control system, based on Industrial Image Processing, having a high degree of applicability in the AM PBF processes.