Patent — available for licensing
Additive Manufacturing Model-based Process Metrics (AM-PM)
A NASA invention available to explore as a licensing opportunity.
About this technology
Overview
Additive manufacturing enables unrivaled design freedom and flexible fabrication of components from a wide range of materials including metals, composites, polymers, and ceramics. The near net shape parts are made by processes like sequential melting or layer-by-layer material deposition with a complex set of processing variables. The sequential nature of the process means that every step can impact the next and thus, tools to evaluate that risk before and during manufacturing are necessary. Inventors at the NASA Langley Research Center have developed a novel method to model and ingest point-wise process data to evaluate an additive manufacturing build and its file for issues by highlighting potential anomalies or other areas where the build may have issues with fusion of the material. The technique was originally developed for use in tandem with powder bed fusion additive manufacturing for aerospace parts and is capable of being used on consumer grade computers.