Additive Fertigung
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Eingeladener Vortrag
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The overview of the activity of Federal Institute for Material Research and Testing (BAM, Belin, Germany) in the field material characterization by X-ray imaging is presented. The principle of X-ray Computed Tomography (XCT) is explained. The multiple examples of application of quantitative analysis by XCT are reported, such as additive manufacturing, Li-ion battery, concrete research.
In manufacturing, fusion welding processes use a lot of resources, which presents an opportunity to reduce environmental impact. While there is a general understanding of the environmental impact of these processes, it is difficult to quantitatively assess key parameters. This study introduces a welding-specific methodology that uses life cycle assessment (LCA) to evaluate the environmental impact of fusion welding technologies. Our approach analyses the main parameters that affect the environmental performance of different welding techniques, including traditional methods and additive manufacturing through the Direct Energy Deposition-Arc (DED-Arc) process. We integrate real-time resource usage data to offer an innovative framework for directly deriving environmental impacts. This research contributes to optimising welding processes by providing a precise and quantifiable measure of their ecological impact, facilitating the advancement of sustainable manufacturing practices.
Life cycle assessment of fusion welding processes considering upstream and downstream process steps
(2023)
In manufacturing, fusion welding processes consume significant resources, presenting a significant opportunity for reducing environmental impact. Although there is a qualitative understanding of the environmental implications of these processes, a quantitative assessment of key parameters remains complex. This study introduces a welding-specific methodology that employs life cycle assessment (LCA) to quantitatively evaluate the environmental footprint of fusion welding technologies. Our approach identifies and analyses the principal parameters affecting the environmental performance of various welding techniques, including traditional joint welding and additive manufacturing via the Direct Energy Deposition-Arc (DED-Arc) process. Real-time resource usage data is integrated to offer an innovative framework for directly deriving environmental impacts. This research contributes to optimising welding processes by providing a precise and quantifiable measure of their ecological impact. This facilitates the advancement of sustainable manufacturing practices.
Additive manufacturing (AM) processes enable the efficient production of advanced constructions. New developments in topology optimization are leading to weight-optimized designs of increasing complexity. Direct energy deposition processes (DED) such as wire and arc-based additive manufacturing are an important method of additive manufacturing. The wire filler metals enable a wide range of materials, while the arc process provides a high deposition rate compared to laser and powder-based processes. Combined with the use of high-strength steels, the thickness of walls or components can be significantly reduced in the context of lightweight construction, which results in significant savings in energy, costs, time and resources. Suitable high-strength steel filler metals are commercially available for DED-arc AM processes. However, guidelines and quantitative knowledge about welding stresses and cold cracking issues during component production and service are lacking. This limits the industrial application considerably. In a joint project of BAM and Chemnitz University of Technology, the main influences and complex interactions of material, production process, design and processing steps on the residual stress level are investigated. The aim is to develop processing recommendations and a cold cracking test for economical processing and stress-related design of high-strength steels with DED-arc. This study focuses on residual stress analysis by neutron diffraction (ND) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) on defined test specimens. The ND analysis were performed at the Paul Scherrer Institute- Villigen, Switzerland (PSI) and the XRD analysis at BAM. The study shows a quantitative and qualitative comparison of the residual stress magnitudes and distribution between the component bulk (ND) and surface (XRD) analyses. The ND analysis reveals that in DED-arc AM walls the residual stresses dominate in the direction of welding and are negligibly small in each case transverse to the direction of welding. The topology of the analyzed residual stresses shows almost identical residual stress maps compared to XRD. In addition, the residual stresses are significantly influenced by the solid phase transformation of the material due to low cooling times and less post heat treatment cycles of following AM layers in the area of the top layer.
Laser powder bed fusion of metallic components (PBF-LB/M) is gaining acceptance in industry. However, the high costs and lengthy qualification processes required for printed components create the need for more effective in-situ monitoring and testing methods. This article proposes multispectral Optical Tomography (OT) as a new approach for monitoring the PBF-LB/M process. Compared to other methods, OT is a low-cost process monitoring method that uses long-time exposure imaging to observe the build process. However, it lacks time resolution compared to expensive thermographic sensor systems. Monochromatic OT (1C-OT) is already commercially available and observes the building process layer-wise using a single wavelength window in the NIR range. Multispectral OT (nC-OT) utilizes a similar setup but can measure multiple wavelength ranges per location simultaneously. By comparing the classical 1C-OT and nC-OT approaches, this article examines the advantages of nC-OT (two channel OT and RGB-OT) in reducing the false positive rate for process deviations and approximating maximum temperatures for a better comparison between different build processes and materials. This could ultimately reduce costs and time for part qualification. The main goal of this contribution is to assess the advantages of nC-OT compared to 1C-OT for in-situ process monitoring of PBF-LB/M.
Residual stresses Analysis in Additively Manufactured alloys using neutron diffraction (L-PBF)
(2023)
An overview of recent progress at BAM of residual stress analysis in additively manufactured, in particular Laser Powder Bed Fusion of metallics materials, using neutron diffraction will be presented. This will cover important topics of the stress-free reference, the diffraction elastic moduli and principal stress determination.
The overview of the activity of Federal Institute for Material Research and Testing (BAM, Belin, Germany) in the field of additively manufacturing material characterization will be presented. The research of our group is focused on the 3D imaging of AM materials by means of X-ray Computed Tomography at the lab and at synchrotron, and the residual stress characterization by diffraction (nondestructive technique). Also, two successful research project in collaboration with CAM2, Sweden are presented.
The capability to produce complexly and individually shaped metallic parts is one of the main advantages of the laser powder bed fusion (PBF LB/M) process. Development of material and machine specific process parameters is commonly based on results acquired from small cubic test coupons of about 10 mm edge length. Such cubes are usually used to conduct an optimization of process parameters to produce dense material. The parameters are then taken as the basis for the manufacturing of real part geometries. However, complex geometries go along with complex thermal histories during the manufacturing process, which can significantly differ from thermal conditions prevalent during the production of simply shaped test coupons. This may lead to unexpected and unpredicted local inhomogeneities of the microstructure and defect distribution in the final part and it is a root cause of reservations against the use of additive manufacturing for the production of safety relevant parts. In this study, the influence of changing thermal conditions on the resulting melt pool depth of 316L stainless steel specimens is demonstrated. A variation of thermo-graphically measured intrinsic preheating temperatures was triggered by an alteration of inter layer times and a variation of cross section areas of specimens for three distinct sets of process parameters. Correlations between the preheating temperature, the melt pool depth, and occurring defects were analyzed. The limited expressiveness of the results of small density cubes is revealed throughout the systematic investigation. Finally, a clear recommendation to consider thermal conditions in future process parameter optimizations is given.
New developments in nickel-based superalloys and production methods, such as the use of additive manufacturing (AM), can result in innovative designs for turbines. It is crucial to understand how the material behaves during the AM process to advance industrial use of these techniques. An analytical model based on reaction-diffusion formalism is developed to better explain the solidification behavior of the material during laser metal deposition (LMD). The well-known Scheil-Gulliver theory has some drawbacks, such as the assumption of equilibrium at the solid-liquid interface, which is addressed by this method. The solidified fractions under the Scheil model and the pure equilibrium model are calculated using CALPHAD simulations. Differential scanning calorimeter is used to measure the heat flow during the solid-liquid phase transformation, the result of which is further converted to solidified fractions. The analytical model is compared with all the other models for validation.
Great complexity characterizes Additive Manufacturing (AM) of metallic components via laser powder bed fusion (PBF-LB/M). Due to this, defects in the printed components (like cracks and pores) are still common. Monitoring methods are commercially used, but the relationship between process data and defect formation is not well understood yet. Furthermore, defects and deformations might develop with a temporal delay to the laser energy input. The component’s actual quality is consequently only determinable after the finished process.
To overcome this drawback, thermographic in-situ testing is introduced. The defocused process laser is utilized for nondestructive testing performed layer by layer throughout the build process. The results of the defect detection via infrared cameras are shown for a research PBF-LB/M machine.
This creates the basis for a shift from in-situ monitoring towards in-situ testing during the AM process. Defects are detected immediately inside the process chamber, and the actual component quality is determined.
Hot Isostatic Pressing (HIP) is often introduced to tackle the porosity issue in additively manufactured (AM) materials. For instance, HIP post-processing is recommended to improve fatigue resistance of Laser powder bed fusion (PBF-LB) manufactured parts [1, 2]. Even though HIP cannot completely remove porosity, it significantly decreases the defect population and its average size below the critical threshold value leading to early crack initiation.
In the present study, in-situ investigation of HIP procedure of PBF-LB Ti-6Al-4V parts was carried out to gain further insights into the densification mechanism occurring during HIP. The in-situ observations at high pressure and high temperature are uniquely possible at the PSICHE beamline of the Soleil synchrotron (France), thanks to the Ultrafast Tomography on a Paris-Edinburgh Cell (UToPEC) and the combination of the fast phase-contrast tomography and energy-dispersive diffraction [3, 4]. A detailed methodology was developed to ensure that the correct pressure and temperature were maintained during the experiments.
The results allowed an estimation of the global dentification rate during HIP of PBF-LB Ti-Al-4V material, as well as a detailed quantitative characterization of the influence of pore size and shape on the densification process, thereby understanding the effectiveness of HIP process on different pore categories. After 20 mins, 75% of porosity can be considered as closed or has size below the resolution of the XCT reconstruction. We also observed that the smallest defects showed higher densification rate, while the defect shape did not have significant effect on such rate. The current development of in-situ HIP experiment allows experimental quantification and validation of the simulation work. Ultimately it paves the road to tailoring the HIP procedure for different materials depending on the porosity and microstructure.
The focus of the presentation focus will be on 3D imaging by means of X-ray Computed Tomography (XCT) at the lab and at synchrotron, and the non-destructive residual stress (RS) characterization by diffraction of additively manufactured (AM) materials in BAM (Berlin, Germany). The manufacturing defects and high RS are inherent of AM techniques and affect structural integrity of the components. Using XCT the defects size and shape distribution as well as geometrical deviations can be characterized, allowing the further optimization of the manufacturing process. Diffraction-based RS analysis methods using neutron and synchrotron X-rays at large scale facilities offer the possibility to non-destructively spatially resolve both surface and bulk RS in complex components and track their changes following applied thermal or mechanical loads.
Safety-critical applications of products manufactured by laser powder bed fusion (PBF-LB/M) are still limited to date. This is mainly due to a lack of knowledge regarding the complex relationship between process, structure, and resulting properties. The assurance of homogeneity of the microstructure and homogeneity of the occurrence and distribution of defects within complexly shaped geometries is still challenging. Unexpected and unpredicted local inhomogeneities may cause catastrophic failures. The identification of material specific and machine specific process parameter windows for production of fully dense simple laboratory specimens is state of the art. However, the incorporation of changing thermal conditions that a complexly shaped component can be faced with during the manufacturing process is often neglected at the stage of a process window determination. This study demonstrates the tremendous effect of changing part temperatures on the defect occurrence for the broadly used stainless steel alloy AISI 316L. Process intrinsic variations of the surface temperature are caused by heat accumulation which was measured by use of a temperature adjusted mid-wavelength infrared (MWIR) camera. Heat accumulation was triggered by simple yet effective temporal and geometrical restrictions of heat dissipation. This was realized by a variation of inter layer times and reduced cross section areas of the specimens. Differences in surface temperature of up to 800 K were measured. A severe development of keyhole porosity resulted from these distinct intrinsic preheating temperatures, revealing a shift of the process window towards unstable melting conditions. The presented results may serve as a warning to not solely rely on process parameter optimization without considering the actual process conditions a real component is faced with during the manufacturing process. Additionally, it motivates the development of representative test specimens.
Safety-critical applications of products manufactured by laser powder bed fusion (PBF-LB/M) are still limited to date. This is mainly due to a lack of knowledge regarding the complex relationship between process, structure, and resulting properties. The assurance of homogeneity of the microstructure and homogeneity of the occurrence and distribution of defects within complexly shaped geometries is still challenging. Unexpected and unpredicted local inhomogeneities may cause catastrophic failures. The identification of material specific and machine specific process parameter windows for production of fully dense simple laboratory specimens is state of the art. However, the incorporation of changing thermal conditions that a complexly shaped component can be faced with during the manufacturing process is often neglected at the stage of a process window determination. This study demonstrates the tremendous effect of changing part temperatures on the defect occurrence for the broadly used stainless steel alloy AISI 316L. Process intrinsic variations of the surface temperature are caused by heat accumulation which was measured by use of a temperature adjusted mid-wavelength infrared (MWIR) camera. Heat accumulation was triggered by simple yet effective temporal and geometrical restrictions of heat dissipation. This was realized by a variation of inter layer times and reduced cross section areas of the specimens. Differences in surface temperature of up to 800 K were measured. A severe development of keyhole porosity resulted from these distinct intrinsic preheating temperatures, revealing a shift of the process window towards unstable melting conditions. The presented results may serve as a warning to not solely rely on process parameter optimization without considering the actual process conditions a real component is faced with during the manufacturing process. Additionally, it motivates the development of representative test specimens.
Additive manufacturing (AM) processes such as laser powder bed fusion (PBF-LB/M) are rapidly gaining popularity in repair applications. Gas turbine components benefit from the hybrid repair process as only damaged areas are removed using conventional machining and rebuilt using an AM process. However, hybrid repair is associated with several challenges such as component fixation and precise geometry detection. This article introduces a novel fixturing system, including a sealing concept to prevent powder sag during the repair process. Furthermore, a high-resolution camera within an industrial PBF-LB/M machine is installed and used for object detection and laser recognition. Herein, process related inaccuracies such as PBF-LB/M laser drift is considered by detection of reference objects. This development is demonstrated by the repair of a representative gas turbine blade. The final offset between AM build-up and component is analysed. An approximate accuracy of 160 μm is achieved with the current setup.
Additive manufacturing (AM) processes such as laser powder bed fusion (PBF-LB/M) are rapidly gaining popularity in repair applications. Gas turbine components benefit from the hybrid repair process as only damaged areas are removed using conventional machining and rebuilt using an AM process. However, hybrid repair is associated with several challenges such as component fixation and precise geometry detection. This article introduces a novel fixturing system, including a sealing concept to prevent powder sag during the repair process. Furthermore, a high-resolution camera within an industrial PBF-LB/M machine is installed and used for object detection and laser recognition. Herein, process related inaccuracies such as PBF-LB/M laser drift is considered by detection of reference objects. This development is demonstrated by the repair of a representative gas turbine blade. The final offset between AM build-up and component is analysed. An approximate accuracy of 160 μm is achieved with the current setup.
Metal Additive Manufacturing (AM) technologies such as Laser Powder Bed Fusion (LPBF) are characterized by layer wise construction, which enable advancements of component design, leading to potential efficiency and performance improvements. However, the rapid cooling rates associated with the process consequently leads to the generation of high magnitude residual stresses (RS). Therefore, a deep understanding of the formation of RS, the influence of process parameters on their magnitude and the impact on mechanical performance is crucial for widespread application. The experimental characterization of these RS is essential for safety related engineering application and supporting the development of reliable numerical models. Diffraction-based methods for RS analysis using high energy synchrotron X-rays and neutrons enable non-destructive spatially resolved characterization of both surface and bulk residual stresses in complex components. This presentation will provide an overview of recent research conducted by the BAM at large scale facilities for the characterization of residual stresses in LPBF metallic alloys. Special focus will be given to the challenges posed by textured LPBF materials for the reliable choice of the diffraction elastic constants (DECs), which is crucial to the accurate calculation of the level of RS.
Synchrotron X-ray computed tomography (SXCT) at BAMline has been paired with in-situ tensile loading to monitor damage evolution in LPBF Metal Matrix Composite (MMC) 7017 Aluminium alloy + 3 wt% Zr + 0.5 wt% TiC. The processing of the material leads formation to different categories of Zr-rich inclusions, precipitates and defects. In-situ SXCT test disclosed the critical role of the pre-cracks in the reinforcement phases in the failure mechanisms of LPBF MMC. The damage was initiated from lack-of-fusion defects and cracks propagated through coalescence with other defects.
High-strength steels offer great potential in weight-optimised modern steel structures. Additive manufacturing processes, such as Wire Arc Additive Manufacturing (WAAM), enable near-net-shape manufacturing of complex structures and more efficient manufacturing, offering significant savings in costs, time, and resources. Suitable filler materials for WAAM are already commercially available. However, the lack of knowledge or technical guidelines regarding welding residual stresses during manufacturing and operation in connection with cold cracking risk limit their industrial application significantly. In a project of BAM and TU Chemnitz, the influences and complex interactions of material, manufacturing process, design and processing steps on residual stress evolution are investigated. By developing process recommendations and a special cold cracking test, economic manufacturing, and stress-appropriate design of high-strength steel WAAM components are main objectives.
The present study focuses on determining the influence of heat control (interpass temperature, heat input, cooling time) and the design aspects of the components on the hardness and residual stresses, which are analysed by X-ray diffraction. Defined reference specimens, i.e., hollow cuboids, are automatically welded with a special WAAM solid wire. The influences of wall length, wall thickness and wall height on the residual stresses are analysed. Geometric properties can be selectively adjusted by wire feed and welding speed but cannot be varied arbitrarily. This was addressed by adapted build-up strategies. The results indicate a significant influence of the heat control and the wall height on the residual stresses. The interpass temperature, wall thickness and wall length are not significant. These analyses allow recommendations for standards and manufacturing guidelines, enabling a safe and economic manufacturing of high-strength steel components.
The elastic properties (Young's modulus, shear modulus) of austenitic stainless steel AISI 316L were investigated between room temperature and 900 °C in an additively manufactured variant (laser powder bed fusion, PBF‑LB/M) and from a conventional process route (hot rolled sheet). The moduli were determined using the dynamic resonance method. The data set includes information on processing parameters, heat treatments, grain size, specimen dimensions and weight, Young’s and shear modulus as well as their measurement uncertainty.
The dataset was generated in an accredited testing lab using calibrated measuring equipment. The calibrations meet the requirements of the test procedure and are metrologically traceable. The dataset was audited as BAM reference data.
The elastic properties (Young's modulus, shear modulus) of Ni-based alloy Inconel IN718 were investigated between room temperature and 800 °C in an additively manufactured variant (laser powder bed fusion, PBF‑LB/M) and from a conventional process route (hot rolled bar). The moduli were determined using the dynamic resonance method. The data set includes information on processing parameters, heat treatments, grain size, specimen dimensions and weight, Young’s and shear modulus as well as their measurement uncertainty.
The dataset was generated in an accredited testing lab using calibrated measuring equipment. The calibrations meet the requirements of the test procedure and are metrologically traceable. The dataset was audited as BAM reference data.
The elastic properties (Young's modulus, shear modulus) of titanium alloy Ti-6Al-4V were investigated between room temperature and 400 °C in an additively manufactured variant (laser-based directed energy deposition with powder as feedstock, DED-LB/M) and from a conventional process route (hot rolled bar). The moduli were determined using the dynamic resonance method. The data set includes information on processing parameters, heat treatments, microstructure, grain size, specimen dimensions and weight, Young’s and shear modulus as well as their measurement uncertainty.
The dataset was generated in an accredited testing lab using calibrated measuring equipment. The calibrations meet the requirements of the test procedure and are metrologically traceable. The dataset was audited as BAM reference data.
3D printing or additive manufacturing in space is of great value for long-term human spaceflight missions and space stations, conveniently offering access to a ‘virtual warehouse’ of tools and spare parts on the push of a button. The process only needs one type of feedstock such as powder or filament and only as much material as the final part requires, giving it a huge weight benefit over traditional subtractive methods.
While 3D printers are already operational on the ISS since 2014, the utilized processes are only capable of manufacturing relatively low strength parts from polymers not suitable for many tools or critical components. To gain access to high quality metal prints, a modified Laser Powder Bed Fusion (LPBF) process was developed to stabilize the critical powder bed in microgravity through a gas flow [2]. This setup was able to generate a (miniature) steel wrench during parabolic flights, but a reliable layer deposition has raised challenges due to the combination of gas flow parameters with microgravity conditions. Furthermore, the quality and density of the powder bed, which is critical for the process, cannot be examined afterward on the ground. This is due to hyper gravity phases during the flight that are influencing the properties of the powder bed.
In this paper, the challenges of the layer deposition are revised, and the subsequent evolution of the recoating system explained. Later, the challenges of an in-situ quality control, evaluation, and quantification of the properties of the powder bed are examined. As a solution, a high-resolution line-scanner is proposed and its implementation int the compact LPBF system demonstrated. Its ability to measure common defects such as ridges in the deposited layer is shown in experiments at normal gravity. As an illustration, Figure 1 shows an extreme case of the formation of ridges.
2PP-TestArtifact
(2023)
This repository contains a test artifact (TA), also called test structure, designed for two-photon polymerization (also known as Direct Laser Writing (DLW) or Two/Multi-photon lithography (2PA/MPA)). Test artifacts can be used to compare structures, to check options used by the slicer, check the state of the 2PP machine itself or to get a construction guidelines for a certain combination of power, velocity and settings.
The associated paper can be found here: https://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1361-6501/acc47a
General ideas behind the test artifact:
1. optimized for 2PP-DLW
2. should be fast and easy to analyse with optical microscopy or 3. scanning electron microscopy without tilt.
3. short time to fabricate
4. include a reasonable amount of different features
5. bulk and small structures on the substrate
The overview of the activity of Federal Institute for Material Research and Testing (BAM, Belin, Germany) in the field of additively manufacturing material characterization will be presented. The research of our group is focused on the 3D imaging of AM materials by means of X-ray Computed Tomography at the lab and at synchrotron, and the residual stress characterization by diffraction (nondestructive technique).
Al-Si alloys produced by Laser Powder Bed Fusion (PBFLB) allow the fabrication of lightweight free-shape components. Due to the extremely heterogeneous cooling and heating, PBF-LB induces high magnitude residual stress (RS) and a fine Si microstructure. As the RS can be deleterious to the fatigue resistance of engineering components, great efforts are focused on understanding their evolution in as-built state (AB) and after post-process heat treatments (HT). RS in single edge notch bending (SENB) subjected to different HT are investigated (HT1: 1h at 265°C and HT2: 2h at 300°C).
The Global Exploration Strategy of the International Space Exploration Coordination Group (ISECG) describes a timeframe of 2020 and beyond with the ultimate aim to establish a human presence on Mars towards the 2040ies. The next steps lie on the Moon with a focus on the coming 10 years. Early lunar surface missions will establish a capability in support of lunar science and prepare and test mission operations for subsequent human exploration of Mars and long-duration human activities on the Moon.
Given the extreme costs involved in the shipping of material from Earth, a prerequisite for future human exploration is the manufacturing of elements directly on the Moon’s surface. Unlike the equipment, which at the beginning will have to be brought from Earth, raw materials and energy could be available following the concept of In-Situ Resource Utilization. The ESA OSIP PAVING THE ROAD (PAVER) study investigates the use of a laser to sinter regolith into paving elements for use as roadways and launch pads thus mitigating dust issues for transport and exploration vehicles.
The ESA-funded study examines the potential of using a laser (12 kW CO2 laser with spot beam up to 100 mm) for layer sintering of lunar and martian regolith powders to manufacture larger 3D elements and provide know-how for the automatic manufacture of paving elements in the lunar environment. The project contributes to the first step toward the establishment of a lunar base and will lead to the construction of equipment capable of paving areas and manufacturing 3D structures.
PAVER project sets the starting point for an examination of the larger context of lunar exploration. Mission scenarios will look at different phases of lunar exploration: Robotic Lunar Exploration, Survivability, Sustainability, and Operational Phase. A proposed Technology Roadmap investigates the mission scenario and analyses how, and to which extent, laser melting/sintering will play a role in the various phases of exploration. The paper contextualizes laser sintering within selected mission scenarios and discusses the different kinds of infrastructure that can be produced at each phase of the mission. The outcome of the study includes the detailing of the TRL steps in the project and an outline of a timeline for the different elements. Covered aspects include terrain modelling such as operation pads, roadways, or towers, non-pressurized building structures to protect machinery, and habitat envelopes, to protect and shield humans against dust, micrometeoroids, and radiation.
At the Workshop "Neutron and Synchrotron Monitoring in Aerospace Advanced Manufacturing" at the Institute of Materials Physics in Space, German Aerospace Center (DLR) in Cologne, we presented on the opportunities and our experiences of using a powder based additive manufacturing process for in-space manufacturing applications in microgravity.
The Global Exploration Strategy of the International Space Exploration Coordination Group (ISECG) describes a timeframe of 2020 and beyond with the ultimate aim to establish a human presence on Mars towards the 2040ies. The next steps lie on the Moon with a focus on the coming 10 years. Early lunar surface missions will establish a capability in support of lunar science and prepare and test mission operations for subsequent human exploration of Mars and long-duration human activities on the Moon.
Given the extreme costs involved in the shipping of material from Earth, a prerequisite for future human exploration is the manufacturing of elements directly on the Moon’s surface. Unlike the equipment, which at the beginning will have to be brought from Earth, raw materials and energy could be available following the concept of In-Situ Resource Utilization. The ESA OSIP PAVING THE ROAD (PAVER) study investigates the use of a laser to sinter regolith into paving elements for use as roadways and launch pads thus mitigating dust issues for transport and exploration vehicles.
The ESA-funded study examines the potential of using a laser (12 kW CO2 laser with spot beam up to 100 mm) for layer sintering of lunar and martian regolith powders to manufacture larger 3D elements and provide know-how for the automatic manufacture of paving elements in the lunar environment. The project contributes to the first step toward the establishment of a lunar base and will lead to the construction of equipment capable of paving areas and manufacturing 3D structures.
PAVER project sets the starting point for an examination of the larger context of lunar exploration. Mission scenarios will look at different phases of lunar exploration: Robotic Lunar Exploration, Survivability, Sustainability, and Operational Phase. A proposed Technology Roadmap investigates the mission scenario and analyses how, and to which extent, laser melting/sintering will play a role in the various phases of exploration. The paper contextualizes laser sintering within selected mission scenarios and discusses the different kinds of infrastructure that can be produced at each phase of the mission. The outcome of the study includes the detailing of the TRL steps in the project and an outline of a timeline for the different elements. Covered aspects include terrain modelling such as operation pads, roadways, or towers, non-pressurized building structures to protect machinery, and habitat envelopes, to protect and shield humans against dust, micrometeoroids, and radiation.
3D-printed landing pads on the moon: Paving the road for large area sintering of lunar regolith.
A prerequisite for lunar exploration and beyond is the manufacturing of objects directly on the moon, given the extreme costs involved in the shipping of material from Earth. Looking at processes, raw materials, and energy sources, equipment will certainly have to be brought from Earth at the beginning. Available on the moon are lunar regolith as raw material and the sun as an energy source. One of the first steps towards the establishment of a lunar base is the creation of infrastructure elements, such as roads and landing pads.
We’ll introduce you to the ESA-project PAVER that demonstrates the sintering and melting of lunar regolith simulant material to produce large scale 3D printed elements that could be used during human and robotic lunar explorations.
When it comes to higher accuracies, new technologies and real applications in additive manufacturing, there is one topic which cannot be avoided: The material response on the chosen processing parameters and its agreement and correspondence with literature data of the wrought material grade counterpart. In industrial Additive Manufacturing (AM) standards in terms of printing parameters, protection gas atmospheres or powder handling instructions are not obligatory. Therefore, the question must be answered whether the AM process is reproducible and reliable over different printing companies. This was the motivation to realize a round robin test between 8 European printing companies and academic partners. The consortium had printed and tested fatigue and tensile testing bars under plant-specific conditions. A commonly used cast aluminum alloy, AlSi10Mg, was chosen as test material for the PBF-LB/M process. Differences of the results between the partners and the scatter itself were discussed in detail.
When it comes to higher accuracies, new technologies and real applications in additive manufacturing, there is one topic which cannot be avoided: The material response on the chosen processing parameters and its agreement and correspondence with literature data of the wrought material grade counterpart. In industrial Additive Manufacturing (AM) standards in terms of printing parameters, protection gas atmospheres or powder handling instructions are not obligatory. Therefore, the question must be answered whether the AM process is reproducible and reliable over different printing companies. This was the motivation to realize a round robin test between 8 European printing companies and academic partners. The consortium had printed and tested fatigue and tensile testing bars under plant-specific conditions. A commonly used cast aluminum alloy, AlSi10Mg, was chosen as test material for the PBF-LB/M process. Differences of the results between the partners and the scatter itself were discussed in detail.
With the introduction of a hydrogen-based energy and national economy, safety-relevant components for hydrogen technologies are becoming increasingly important. Characteristic of hydrogen technologies are, for example, harsh environmental conditions such as cryogenic or high-pressure storage, corrosion issues in fuel cells and electrolyzers, turbines, and many more. Additive manufacturing of components is becoming increasingly important and irreplaceable for the production of complex technical systems. Using the case studies of burners for gas turbines and electrodes and membranes for polymer (PEMFC) and solid oxide (SOFC) fuel cells, this article shows the potential of additive manufacturing of components. At the same time, however, the challenge of considering divergent mechanical properties depending on the direction of assembly in a "hydrogen-compatible" manner is also highlighted. Finally, the challenges posed by additive manufacturing and hydrogen for materials testing are highlighted under scenarios that are as realistic as possible.
The availability of high-performance Al alloys in AM is limited due to difficulties in printability, requiring both the development of synergetic material and AM process to mitigate problems such as solidification cracking during laser powder bed fusion (LPBF). The goal of this work was to investigate the failure mechanism in a LPBF 7017 Aluminium alloy + 3 wt% Zr + 0.5 wt% TiC. The processing leads to different categories of Zr-rich inclusions, precipitates and defects.
Design methodology of vessel produced by L PBF stainless steel using representative specimens
(2022)
This work presents the preliminary results of an ongoing project with a double objective: on the one hand, the characterisation of the mechanical properties against fatigue damage of an additively manufactured 316 stainless steel produced by laser powder bed-based (L-PBF) technology; on the other hand, the implementation of numerical simulation techniques able to predict the mechanical behaviour of the material in order to optimise and reduce the design costs of vessels used in the chemical sector. The current state of the work developed in this research framework allows showing the first batch of experimental results of crack propagation rate (FCGR) and high cycle fatigue (HCF) tests. The geometry of the vessels studied presents three clearly differentiated regions, either in terms of thickness (11-15 mm) or concerning the inclination of the walls to the direction of manufacturing (0º - 45º). The experimental campaign carried out so far allows identifying the differences in behaviour when comparing different extraction locations around the vessel. This is due to the variations in thermal cycles that the deposited material undergoes during the manufacturing process. Therefore, this causes variations in the microstructure which lead to changes in the response of the material. In this work, these differences are analysed qualitatively and quantitatively from the results of FCGR and HCF, thus allowing to locate the regions with the highest risk in terms of structural integrity against fatigue. This preliminary phase together with the numerical simulation of the additive manufacturing process are key to achieving a reliable description and modelling of the material. The latter will make it possible to address the priority aim of this project, involving the manufacture of independent samples whose properties are representative of the original material extracted from the reference vessels. It is, therefore, a comprehensive methodology for the design of additively manufactured components based on the localised fatigue mechanical properties of representative specimens.
The overview of the activity of group 8.5 Micro-NDT (BAM, Belin, Germany) in the field of additively manufacturing material characterization will be presented. The challenges in the residual stress analysis of AM components are discussed on the basis on the show studies performed in BAM. Also, the synchrotron X-ray refraction technique, available in BAM, is presented, showing example of in-situ heating test of Al10SiMg AM material.
Additively manufactured (AM) metallic sheet-based Triply Periodic Minimal Surface Structures (TPMSS) meet several requirements in both bio-medical and engineering fields: Tunable mechanical properties, low sensitivity to manufacturing defects, mechanical stability, and high energy absorption. However, they also present some challenges related to quality control. In fact, the optimization of both the AM process and the properties of TPMSS is impossible without considering structural characteristics as manufacturing accuracy, internal defects, and as well as surface topography and roughness. In this study, the quantitative non-destructive analysis of TPMSS manufactured from Ti-6Al-4V alloy by electron beam melting was performed by means of laboratory X-ray computed tomography (XCT).
Most of the Al alloys used in additive manufacturing (AM), in particular Laser Powder Bed Fusion (LPBF), do not exceed a strength of 200 MPa, whereas conventionally high-performance alloys exhibit strengths exceeding 400 MPa. The availability of such Al alloys in AM is limited due to difficulties in printability, requiring synergetic material and AM process development to satisfy harsh processing conditions during LPBF [1]. One approach is the addition of reinforcement to the based powder, allowing tailoring composition and properties of a Metal Matrix Composite (MMC) by AM. Still, the effect of the reinforcement on the resulting mechanical properties must be studied to understand the performance and limits of the newly developed material. The goal of this work was to investigate the failure mechanism of LPBF Al-based MMC material using in-situ Synchrotron X-ray Computed Tomography (SXCT) during mechanical testing.
The complexity of any microstructural characterization significantly increases when there is a need to evaluate the icrostructural evolution as a function of temperature. To date, this characterization is primarily performed by undertaking elaborative ex-situ experiments where the material’s heating procedure is interrupted at different temperatures or times. Moreover, these studies are often limited to a region smaller than the representative elementary volume, which can lead to partial or even biased interpretations of the collected data. This limitation can be greatly overcome by using in-situ synchrotron X-ray refraction (SXRR).
The industrial use of additive manufacturing for the production of metallic parts with high geometrical complexity and lot sizes close to one is rapidly increasing as a result of mass individualisation and applied safety relevant constructions. However, due to the high complexity of the production process, it is not yet fully understood and controlled, especially for changing (lot size one) part geometries.
Due to the thermal nature of the Laser-powder bed fusion (L-PBF) process – where parts are built up layer-wise by melting metal powder via laser - the properties of the produced part are strongly governed by its thermal history. Thus, a promising route for process monitoring is the use of thermography. However, the reconstruction of temperature information from thermographic data relies on the knowledge of the surface emissivity at each position on the part. Since the emissivity is strongly changing during the process due to phase changes, great temperature gradients, possible oxidation, and other potential influencing factors, the extraction of real temperature data from thermographic images is challenging. While the temperature development in and around the melt pool, where melting and solidification occur is most important for the development of the part properties. Also, the emissivity changes are most severe in this area, rendering the temperature deduction most challenging.
A possible route to overcome the entanglement of temperature and emissivity in the thermal radiation is the use of hyperspectral imaging in combination with temperature emissivity separation (TES) algorithms. As a first step towards the combined temperature and emissivity determination in the L-PBF process, here, we use a hyperspectral line camera system operating in the short-wave infrared region (0.9 µm to 1.7 µm) to measure the spectral radiance emitted. In this setup, the melt pool of the L-PBF process migrates through the camera’s 1D field of view, so that the radiation intensities are recorded simultaneously for multiple different wavelength ranges in a spatially resolved manner. At sufficiently high acquisition frame rate, an effective melt pool image can be reconstructed. Using the grey body approximation (emissivity is independent of the wavelength), a first, simple TES is performed, and the resulting emissivity and temperature values are compared to literature values. Subsequent work will include reference measurements of the spectral emissivity in different states allowing its analytical parametrisation as well as the adaption and optimisation of the TES algorithms. An illustration of the proposed method is shown in Fig.1.
The investigated method will allow to gain a deeper understanding of the L-PBF process, e.g., by quantitative validation of simulation results. Additionally, the results will provide a data basis for the development of less complex and cheaper sensor technologies for L-PBF in-process monitoring (or for related process), e.g., by using machine learning.
The overview of the activity of group 8.5 Micro-NDT (BAM, Belin, Germany) in the field of additively manufacturing material characterization will be presented. The research of our group is focused on the 3D imaging of AM materials by means of X-ray Computed Tomography at the lab and at synchrotron, and the residual stress characterization by diffraction (nondestructive technique).
Recently, additive manufacturing of ceramics has achieved the maturity to be transferred from scientific laboratories to industrial applications. At the same time, research is progressing to expand the boundaries of this field into the territory of novel materials and applications. This feature issue addresses current progress in all aspects of additive manufacturing of ceramics, from parts design to feedstock selection, from technological development to characterization of printed components.
Instead of foreseeing and preparing for all possible scenarios of machine failures, accidents, and other challenges arising in space missions, it appears logical to take advantage of the flexibility of additive manufacturing for “in-space manufacturing” (ISM). Manned missions into space rely on complicated equipment, and their safe operation is a great challenge. Bearing in mind the absolute distance for manned missions to the Moon and Mars, the supply of spare parts for the repair and replacement of lost equipment via shipment from Earth would require too much time. With the high flexibility in design and the ability to manufacture ready-to-use components directly from a computer-aided model, additive manufacturing technologies appear to be extremely attractive in this context. Moreover, appropriate technologies are required for the manufacture of building habitats for extended stays of astronauts on the Moon and Mars, as well as material/feedstock. The capacities for sending equipment and material into space are not only very limited and costly, but also raise concerns regarding environmental issues on Earth. Accordingly, not all materials can be sent from Earth, and strategies for the use of in-situ resources, i.e., in-situ resource utilization (ISRU), are being
envisioned. For the manufacturing of both complex parts and equipment, as well as for large infrastructure, appropriate technologies for material processing in space need to be developed.
In this work, we present the recent in-situ imaging developments at the BAMline (of synchrotron BESSY II, HZB), focused on the in-situ characterization and understanding of microstructural evolution of additively manufactured materials subjected to different environments. Two show cases are presented. In the first, X-ray refraction radiography (SXRR) was combined with in-situ heat treatment to monitor the microstructural evolution as a function of temperature in a laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) manufactured AlSi10Mg alloy. We show that SXRR allows detecting the changes in the Si-phase morphology upon heating using statistically relevant volumes. SXRR also allows observing the growth of pores (i.e., thermally induced porosity), usually studied via X-ray computed tomography (XCT), but using much smaller fields-of-view. In the second case study, XCT was combined with in-situ tensile test to investigate the damage mechanism in a LPBF Aluminum Metal Matrix Composite (MMC). In-situ SXCT test disclosed the critical role of the defects in the failure mechanism along with pre-cracks in the reinforcement phase of MMC. We found that cracks were initiated from lack-of-fusion defects and propagated through coalescence with other defects.
Additive manufacturing (AM) of metallic alloys has gained momentum in the past decade for industrial applications. The microstructures of AM metallic alloys are complex and hierarchical from the macroscopic to the nanometer scale. When using laser-based powder bed fusion (L-PBF) process, two main microstructural features emerge at the nanoscale: the melt pool boundaries (MPB) and the solidification cellular substructure.
Here, details of the MPB are revealed to clearly show the three-dimensional nature of MPBs with changes of cell growth of direction and their relation to their surrounding cellular substructure, as investigated by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) for L-PBF 316L austenitic stainless steel (cf. Figure 1). A hitherto unknown modulated substructure with a period of 21 nm is further discovered within cells as the result of a partial Ga+-focused ion beam-induced ferritic transformation of the austenite. Cell cores and cell boundaries differ notably regarding the modulated substructure.
The micromechanical behavior of an annealed Ti-6Al-4V material produced by Laser Powder Bed Fusion was characterized by means of in-situ synchrotron X-ray diffraction during a tensile test. The lattice strain evolution was obtained parallel and transversal to the loading direction. The elastic constants were determined and compared with the conventionally manufactured alloy. In the plastic regime, a lower plastic anisotropy exhibited by the lattice planes was observed along the load axis (parallel to the building direction) than in the transverse direction.
Also, the load transfer from α to β phase was observed, increasing global ductility of the material. The material seems to accumulate a significant amount of intergranular strain in the transverse direction.
Metal Additive Manufacturing (AM) technologies such as Laser Powder Bed Fusion (LPBF) are characterized by layer wise construction, which enable advancements of component design, with associated potential gains in performance and efficiency. However, high magnitude residual stresses (RS) are often a product of the rapid thermal cycles typical of the layerwise process. Therefore, a deep understanding of the formation of RS, the influence of process parameters on their magnitude and the impact on mechanical performance is crucial for widespread application. The experimental characterisation of these RS is essential for safety related engineering application and supports the development of reliable numerical models. Diffraction-based methods for RS analysis using neutrons and high energy X-rays enable non-destructive spatially resolved characterisation of both surface and bulk residual stresses in complex components. This presentation will provide an overview of recent research by the BAM at large scale facilities for the characterization of residual stresses in LPBF metallic alloys as a function of process parameters. In addition, the challenges posed by the textured and hierarchical microstructures of LPBF materials on diffraction-based RS analysis in AM materials will be discussed. This will include the question of the d0 reference lattice spacing and the appropriate choice of the diffraction elastic constants (DECs) to calculate the level of RS in LPBF manufactured alloys.
Abstract of the event: 'The area of New Space is a vastly growing and dynamic field with a high innovative potential and many exciting ideas. After decades where activities in space were dominated and funded mainly by governmental agencies, a new industry is forming and new business models are being developed around ideas like satellite-based internet, space travel, space mining, geo-monitoring etc. For space applications, lightweight design is crucial to keep the costs at a minimum. This Innovation Day will introduce the field of New Space and present the variety of exciting opportunities that arise for composites based on their excellent lightweight potential.' Another research area is now arising in the field of 3D printing or additive manufacturing of fiber composite materials in space. At the event, we presented on the opportunities and our experiences of using a powder based additive manufacturing process for in-space manufacturing applications.
Joining processes for components in hydrogen technologies: Current need and future importance
(2022)
This presentation gives an overview on the importance of joining processes for component fabrication in hydrogen technologies. For that reason, the current need and future research and developement activites are highlighted for the three technological fields: hydrogen storage, transport and use (in terms of the emerging field of additive manufacturing). Finally, some remarks are given for necessary changes in the standardization.
Additive manufacturing (AM) is becoming increasingly important in engineering applications due to the possibility of producing components with a high geometrical complexity allowing for optimized forms with respect to the in-service functionality. Despite the promising potential, AM components are still far from being used in safety-relevant applications, mainly due to a lack of understanding of the feedstock-process-properties-performance relationship. This work aims at providing a full characterization of the fatigue behavior of the additively manufactured AISI 316L austenitic stainless steel and a direct comparison with the fatigue performance of the wrought steel. To this purpose, a set of specimens has been produced by laser powder bed fusion (L-PBF) and subsequently heat treated at 900 °C for 1 hour for complete stress relief, whereas a second set of specimens has been machined out of hot-rolled plates. Low cycle fatigue (LCF) and high cycle fatigue (HCF) tests have been conducted for characterizing the fatigue behavior. The L-PBF material had a higher fatigue limit and better finite life performance compared to wrought material. Both, LCF and HCF-testing revealed an extensive cyclic softening.
Al-Si alloys produced by Laser Powder Bed Fusion (L-PBF) techniques allow the fabrication of lightweight free-shape components that find space in aerospace, automotive, biomedical and military applications. Due to the high cooling rates occurring during the building process, L-PBF AlSi10Mg alloys exhibit an ultra-fine microstructure that leads to superior mechanical properties in the as-built condition compared to conventional cast Al-Si materials. Nevertheless, L-PBF processing induces high thermal gradients, leading to deleterious residual stress levels that must be considered to avoid part distortion and unpredicted failures. In order to relax detrimental residual stress and to increase the ductility, post-processing stress relief treatments are generally performed. In as-built condition the hypoeutectic AlSi10Mg microstructure consist of fine α-Al cells containing uniformly dispersed silicon nanoparticles, which are, in addition, surrounded by a eutectic Si network. Above 260°C the silicon interconnectivity starts to breakdown into spheroidized particles and to coarsen. At the same time, the heating residual stresses are relieved.
The objective of the contribution is to investigate, under different heat treatment conditions, the evolution of microstructure and residual stresses in view of optimizing the fatigue performance of the alloy. To this purpose various heat treatments in a range of temperatures between 265°C and 300°C for a duration between 15 minutes and 2 hours are performed. The microstructure modifications are analysed using a scanning electron microscope and the residual stress state is measured by laboratory X-ray diffraction.
In-space manufacturing (ISM) provides the opportunity to manufacture and repair critical components on future human spaceflight missions. For explorations to Mars and beyond, ISM is a key strategy not only due to the long travel distances and high costs of supply from earth but also to be able to safely work in space for years. Human spaceflight is still dependent on shipments from earth that can fail for several reasons. ISM is a valuable alternative to ensure the timely and safe resupply of space missions.
With additive manufacturing (AM) technologies, components are built directly from a 3D computer-aided-design (CAD) model which offers the advantages of freedom of design and the production of complex and ready-to-use parts. A virtual tool box with 3D models in space or the supply of information instead of components from earth to space can strongly benefit future missions. For industrial use, most research has focused on laser based additive manufacturing processes such as laser beam melting (LBM) where metallic powder particles are spread into a uniform powder bed and melted by a laser to the desired shape.
In the absence of gravity, the handling of metal powders, which is essential for the process, is challenging. We present an evolution of an AM system, where a gas flow throughout the powder bed is applied to stabilize the powder bed. This is needed to compensate for the missing gravitational forces in microgravity experiments on parabolic flight campaigns. The system consists of a porous building platform acting as a filter for the fixation of metal particles in a gas flow. It is driven by reduced pressure established by a vacuum pump underneath the platform. The system creates a drag force that directs the particles towards the porous building platform, similar to the effect of the gravitational force.
The AM system with its gas-flow-assisted powder deposition has been tested in several parabolic flight campaigns, and stainless-steel powder has successfully been processed during microgravity conditions. Different powder recoating mechanisms have been investigated to assess the homogeneous distribution of the powder as well as the attachment of the next layer to the powder bed. These mechanisms included different container designs with parallel double blades and with a V-shape at the bottom, and a roller recoating system. The samples presented are the first metal parts ever manufactured using LBM in μ-gravity. In addition to manufacturing in a μ-gravity environment, the experiments have shown the feasibility to manufacture components at different accelerations during the parabolic flight: hyper gravity (1.8 g), μ-gravity (< 0.01 g) and 1 g. Recent results will also be presented describing the application of this LBM setup in a parabolic flight campaign with mixed lunar, martian and µ-gravity acceleration, during which the processing of a lunar regolith simulant powder was tested.
For ISM, the development and testing of the proposed AM system demonstrates that LBM can be considered a viable technology for the manufacturing of metal and ceramic parts in a μ-gravity or reduced-gravity environment.
Additive manufacturing technologies provide unique possibilities in the production of topologically optimized, near-net shape components. The main limiting factors affecting the structural integrity of Laser Powder Bed Fusion (LPBF) parts are manufacturing defects and residual stress (RS) because both of them are virtually inevitable. Taking into account the complex thermal history of LPBF materials, a prediction of the material behavior is not possible without experimental data on the microstructure, defect distribution, and RS fields. Therefore, this thesis aims to understand the factors that influence the LPBF Ti-6Al-4V material performance the most, covering both the production and the post-processing steps of manufacturing.
Indeed, a parametric study on the influence of manufacturing process and post-processing on RS, defects and microstructure was performed. It was found that the volumetric energy Density (EV), commonly used for the LPBF process optimization, does neither consider the pore shapes and distribution, nor the influence of individual parameters on the volume fraction of pores.
Therefore, it was recommended not to use EV without great care. It was shown that the Position on the base plate has a great impact on the amount of RS in the part.
The micromechanical behavior of LPBF Ti-6Al-4V was also studied using in-situ Synchrotron X-ray diffraction during tensile and compression tests. Diffraction elastic constants (DEC), connecting macroscopic stress and (micro) strain, of the LPBF Ti-6Al-4V showed a difference
from the DEC of conventionally manufactured alloy. This fact was attributed to the peculiar microstructure and crystallographic texture. It was therefore recommended to determine experimentally DECs whenever possible.
Low Cycle Fatigue (LCF) tests at a chosen operating temperature were performed to evaluate the effect of post-treatment on the mechanical performance. Through the information on the microstructure, the mesostructure, and the RS, the LCF behavior was (indirectly) correlated to the process parameters. It was found that the fatigue performance of LPBF samples subjected to hot isostatic pressing is similar to that of hot-formed Ti-6Al-4V. The tensile RS found at the
surface of LPBF as-built samples decreased the fatigue life compared to the heat-treated samples. The modification of the microstructure (by heat treatment) did not affect the Fatigue performance in the elastic regime. This shows that in the absence of tensile RS, the manufacturing defects solely control the failure of LPBF components and densification has the strongest effect on the improvement of the mechanical performance.
The insulation system of high voltage electrical devices like generators and electrical motors has to withstand thermal, electrical, ambient and mechanical influences (TEAM) during operation. Especially the dielectric properties have to satisfy the requirements also under elevated temperatures and extreme environments. To provide this high quality, the conventional fabrication process uses partly manually applied insulation tapes combined with a cost-intensive and under safety concerns at least problematic vacuum pressure impregnation step (VPI). In order to reduce process costs by increasing the degree of automation and avoiding the VPI process, additively manufactured (AM) insulations were studied. This study focuses on the fabrication of ceramic/polymer compounds via AM technique. The AM technology used a rotating screw extrusion print head with air pressure to supply the paste. Plate-like samples with dimensions of 55 mm x 55 mm x1mm thickness were produced. This work focuses on the homogeneously high viscous paste with 12.5 to 50 volume % ratio of filler particles. Three types of mica powders as ceramic filler materials with different particle sizes from micro to mm scale were evaluated. The controlled volume % ratio of particles affects the paste viscosity which enables stacking of paste layers with a viscosity close to clay pastes. The mixed pastes were cured by heating and UV light to increase mechanical properties. A TG/DTA was performed, and electrical properties were investigated. First experiments with respect to the dielectric properties such as volume resistance, permittivity and dielectric strength revealed promising results and the possibility to use AM techniques for the fabrication of high voltage insulations for electrical machines.
Laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) is an additive manufacturing process for materials which inherently tends to yield various degrees of metastable hierarchical microstructures, defects and high residual stresses in the as-built condition depending on the process parameters. The understanding of the evolution of these typical features during heat treatment and subsequent thermal and mechanical ageing is crucial for the wider acceptance for safety critical structures. A multi-disciplinary research project at BAM studying the development of the microstructure, defects, residual stresses typical of LPBF 316L and their evolution during thermal and mechanical ageing has led to insights into the stability of these inherent features. This presentation aims to give a broad overview of the project with a few specific cases of investigation. Firstly, the formation of residual stresses, the nature of the initial microstructure, the tensile properties and a modelling approach to understand the anisotropy will be presented. This will be followed by examples of studies of their evolution during heat treatment, long term thermal exposure, and room temperature and high temperature mechanical testing compared to a baseline of conventional wrought variant of the same alloy.
Additive manufacturing (AM) technologies are experiencing an exceedingly rapid growth, driven by their potential through layer wise deposition for transformational improvements of engineering design, leading to efficiency and performance improvements. Laser Powder Bed Fusion (LPBF) is an Additive Manufacturing (AM) method which permits the fabrication of complex structures that cannot otherwise be produced via conventional subtractive manufacturing methods. Nevertheless, the rapid cooling rates associated with this process results in the formation of significant and complex residual stress (RS) fields. A large body of both experimental and simulation research has been dedicated in recent years to the control and mitigation of RS in AM. In order to validate simulations with the end goal of being able to model the residual stress state in AM components and to devise strategies for their reduction during manufacturing, experimental methods need to be able to accurately determine 3D residual stresses fields in complex geometries. Several destructive and non-destructive methods can be used to analyze the RS state, the choice of which depends on the geometry and the information required. Diffraction-based methods using penetrating neutron and synchrotron X-rays at large scale facilities offer the possibility to non-destructively spatially resolve both surface and bulk residual stresses in complex components and track their changes following applied thermal or mechanical loads. This presentation will overview the success stories of using large scale facilities by the BAM for the characterization of residual stresses in additively manufactured metallic alloys. In particular, the study of the influence of process parameters on the residual stress state and the relaxation of these stresses through heat treatment will be presented. However there remains challenges to overcome particularly of the hypotheses underlying the experimental determination of residual stresses, which will be discussed.
Introduction to AGIL
(2021)
Metal Additive manufacturing (AM) technologies such as Laser Powder Bed Fusion (LPBF) enable the fabrication of complex structures, giving rise to potential improvements in component and manufacturing efficiency. However, the processes are typically characterized by the generation of high magnitude residual stress (RS) which can have detrimental consequences for subsequent applications. Therefore, the characterization of these RS fields and the understanding of their formation and mitigation through optimized processing is crucial for the wider uptake of the technology. Due to the potential complex nature and high value of components manufactured by LPBF, it is important to have suitable characterisation methods which can determine the spatial variations of RS in a non-destructive manner. Neutron diffraction is considered to be the best suited for these requirements. However, the microstructures developed in the complex thermal cycles experience in the production can pose challenges to the ND method for RS analysis. The BAM has conducted significant research over the past years to overcome these obstacles, enabling higher confidence in the RS determined in LPBF materials by neutron diffraction. This contribution will overview some of these advancements made recently at European neutron sources including on Stress-Spec at FRM2/MLZ.
Al-Si alloys produced by Laser Powder Bed Fusion (L-PBF) techniques allow the fabrication of lightweight free-shape components. Due to the high cooling rates occurring during the building process, L-PBF AlSi10Mg alloys exhibit an ultra-fine microstructure that leads to superior mechanical properties in the as-built condition compared to conventional cast Al-Si materials. Nevertheless, L-PBF processing induces high thermal gradients, leading to deleterious residual stress. In order to relax detrimental residual stress and to increase the ductility, post-processing stress relief treatments are performed. The objective of the contribution is to investigate, under different heat treatment condition, the evolution of microstructure and residual stresses in view of optimizing the fatigue performance of the alloy. To this purpose various heat treatments in a range of temperatures between 265°C and 300°C for a duration between 15 minutes and 2 hours are performed.
Additive manufacturing processes are increasingly being used in industrial applications. Especially powder bed fusion processes are of high interest due to their capability to economically produce individual, highly complex and functionally integrated components in small batches.
However, the quality assurance of these components remains a challenge. Internal defects and undesirable microstructures and surface conditions can deteriorate the mechanical properties. Especially for use in safety-relevant applications, new design and inspection concepts are needed that take these factors into account.
This talk presents typical defects and microstructure phenomena resulting from the laser powder bed fusion process and identifies challenges and opportunities for non-destructive testing from a manufacturing engineering perspective. In particular, the possibility of a process-integrated quality control is shown based on current research results.
Additive Manufacturing (AM) in terms of laser powder-bed fusion (L-PBF) offers new prospects regarding the design of parts and enables therefore the production of complex structures. The quality of the feedstock material receives increasing attention, as it depicts the first part of the L-PBF process chain. The powder quality control in terms of flowability and powder bed packing density is therefore mandatory.
In this work, a workflow for quantitative 3D powder analysis in terms of particle size, particle shape, particle porosity, inter-particle distance and packing density was established. Synchrotron computed tomography (CT) was used to correlate the packing density with the particle size and particle shape for three different powder batches. The polydisperse particle size distribution (PSD) was transformed into a statistically equivalent bidisperse PSD. The ratio of the small and large particles helped to understand the powder particle packing density. While the particle shape had a neglectable influence, the particle size distribution was identified as major contributor for the packing density.
Additive Manufacturing (AM) in terms of laser powder-bed fusion (L-PBF) offers new prospects regarding the design of parts and enables therefore the production of lattice structures. These lattice structures shall be implemented in various industrial applications (e.g. gas turbines) for reasons of material savings or cooling
channels. However, internal defects, residual stress, and structural deviations from the nominal geometry are unavoidable.
In this work, the structural integrity of lattice structures manufactured by means of L-PBF was non-destructively investigated on a multiscale approach.
A workflow for quantitative 3D powder analysis in terms of particle size, particle shape, particle porosity, inter-particle distance and packing density was established.
Synchrotron computed tomography (CT) was used to correlate the packing
density with the particle size and particle shape. It was also observed that at least about 50% of the powder porosity was released during production of the struts.
Struts are the component of lattice structures and were investigated by means of laboratory CT. The focus was on the influence of the build angle on part porosity and surface quality. The surface topography analysis was advanced by the quantitative characterisation of re-entrant surface features. This characterisation was compared with conventional surface parameters showing their complementary
information, but also the need for AM specific surface parameters.
The mechanical behaviour of the lattice structure was investigated with in-situ CT under compression and successive digital volume correlation (DVC). The Deformation was found to be knot-dominated, and therefore the lattice folds unit cell layer wise.
The residual stress was determined experimentally for the first time in such lattice structures. Neutron diffraction was used for the non-destructive 3D stress investigation. The principal stress directions and values were determined in dependence of the number of measured directions. While a significant uni-axial stress state was found in the strut, a more hydrostatic stress state was found in the knot. In both cases, strut and knot, seven directions were at least needed to
find reliable principal stress directions.
Ti-6Al-4V alloy is intensively used in the aerospace industry because of its high specific strength. However, the application of Laser Powder Bed Fusion (LPBF) Ti-6Al-4V alloy for structurally critical load-bearing components is limited. One of the main limiting factors affecting the structural integrity, are manufacturing defects. Additionally, the high cooling rates associated with LPBF process result in the formation of large residual stress (RS) with complex fields. Such RS can cause cracking and geometrical distortions of the part even right after production. Also, the microstructure of LPBF Ti-6Al-4V in the as-built condition is significantly different from that of the conventionally produced alloy. All these factors affect the mechanical behavior of the material. Therefore, to improve the material performance it is important to evaluate the individual effect of RS, defects, and microstructure on fatigue life. To this aim Ti-6Al-4V LPBF material in as-built condition and subjected to different post-processing, including two heat treatments (for stress relief and microstructural modification) and Hot Isostatic Pressing (HIP, for densification), were investigated.
Prior to fatigue tests at elevated temperature, the microstructure, the mesostructure, and subsurface RS on the fatigue samples were investigated. It was found that the fatigue performance of HIPped samples is similar to that of conventionally produced Ti-6Al-4V. The tensile RS found at the surface of as-built samples decreased the fatigue life compared to heat-treated samples. Additionally, the modification of the microstructure (by heat treatment) did not affect the fatigue performance in the regime of mostly elastic strain. This shows that in the absence of tensile RS the manufacturing defects solely control the failure of LPBF components and densification has the strongest effect on the improvement of the mechanical performance.
Within the group of additive manufacturing (AM) technologies for metals, laser powder bed fusion (L-PBF) has a leading position. Nevertheless, reproducibility of part properties has not reached sufficient maturity hindering the use for industrial applications especially for safety-relevant components. This article presents the results of various experimental tests performed with the aluminium alloy AlSi10Mg identifying reasons for the high deviations in mechanical properties. Herein, it is discussed how microstructure is influenced by different process parameters (laser power, scanning speed, energy density, building height) and how it can be adjusted by suitable post process heat treatments. The impact of resulting changes in microstructure is shown by monotonic tensile and cyclic fatigue tests considering specimens manufactured with different L-PBF machines.
Within the group of additive manufacturing (AM) technologies for metals, laser powder bed fusion (L-PBF) has a leading position. Nevertheless, reproducibility of part properties has not reached sufficient maturity hindering the use for industrial applications especially for safety-relevant components. This article presents the results of various experimental tests performed with the aluminium alloy AlSi10Mg identifying reasons for the high deviations in mechanical properties. Herein, it is discussed how microstructure is influenced by different process parameters (laser power, scanning speed, energy density, building height) and how it can be adjusted by suitable post process heat treatments. The impact of resulting changes in microstructure is shown by monotonic tensile and cyclic fatigue tests considering specimens manufactured with different L-PBF machines.
In this chapter, the current state-of-the-art of in situ monitoring and in situ NDE methods in additive manufacturing is summarized. The focus is set on methods, which are suitable for making statements about the quality and usability of a component currently being manufactured. This includes methods which can be used to determine state properties like temperature or density, other physical properties like electrical or thermal conductivity, the microstructure, the chemical composition, the actual geometry, or which enable the direct detection of defects like cracks, voids, delaminations, or inclusions. Thus, optical, thermographic, acoustic, and electromagnetic methods, as well as methods being suitable for investigating particle and fume emission are presented. The requirements of in situ monitoring methods with a focus on thermographic methods are discussed by considering different additive manufacturing processes like laser powder bed fusion (PBF-LB/M) and direct energy deposition (DED-LB/M). Examples of the successful implementation and applications of such monitoring methods at BAM are given. The in situ monitoring and NDE methods are compared against post-process NDE methods. The advantages and challenges of in situ methods concerning real-time data analysis and the application of AI algorithms are addressed and discussed.
Additive manufacturing is well established for plastics and metals, and it gets more and more implemented in a variety of industrial processes. Beside these well-established material platforms, additive manufacturing processes are highly interesting for ceramics, especially regarding resource conservation and for the production of complex three-dimensional shapes and structures with specific feature sizes in the µm and mm range with high accuracy. The usage of ceramics in 3D printing is, however, just at the beginning of a technical implementation in a continuously and fast rising field of research and development. The flexible fabrication of highly complex and precise 3D structures by means of light-induced photopolymerization that are difficult to realize using traditional ceramic fabrication methods such as casting and machining is of high importance. Generally, slurry-based ceramic 3D printing technologies involve liquid or semi-liquid polymeric systems dispersed with ceramic particles as feedstock (inks or pastes), depending on the solid loading and viscosity of the system. This paper includes all types of photo-curable polymer-ceramic-mixtures (feedstock), while demonstrating our own work on 3D printed alumina toughened zirconia based ceramic slurries with light induced polymerization on the basis of two-photon absorption (TPA) for the first time. As a proven exemplary on cuboids with varying edge length and double pyramids in the µm-range we state that real 3D micro-stereolithographic fabrication of ceramic products will be generally possible in the near future by means of TPA. This technology enables the fabrication of 3D structures with high accuracy in comparison to ceramic technologies that apply single-photon excitation. In sum, our work is intended to contribute to the fundamental development of this technology for the representation of oxide-ceramic components (proof-of-principle) and helps to exploit the high potential of additive processes in the field of bio-ceramics in the medium to long-term future.
The underlying cause of mechanical anisotropy in additively manufactured (AM) parts is not yet fully understood and has been attributed to several different factors like microstructural defects, residual stresses, melt pool boundaries, crystallographic and morphological textures.
To better understand the main contributing factor to the mechanical anisotropy of AM stainless steel 316L, bulk specimens were fabricated via laser powder bed fusion (LPBF).
Tensile specimens were machined from these AM bulk materials for three different inclinations relative to the build plate. Dynamic Young's modulus measurements and tensile tests were used to determine the mechanical anisotropy. Some tensile specimens were also subjected to residual stress measurement via neutron diffraction, porosity determination with X-ray micro-computed tomography, and texture analysis with electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD). A crystal plasticity model was used to analyze the elastic anisotropy and the anisotropic yield behavior of the AM specimens, and it was able to capture and predict the experimental behavior accurately. Overall, it was shown that the mechanical anisotropy of the tested specimens was mainly influenced by the crystallographic texture.
In Additive Manufacturing everybody is talking about Free Form, Unconventional Design, Re-thinking Components, “Think out of the box”.
However, there are a few outstanding question: a) What are the material properties ? They certainly differ from literature values for conventional materials; b) How about the microstructure? It is different from conventional materials. Does it stay so with ageing? How does it form? c) Do we properly take residual stress into account? We often blame them for our ignorance about failure scenarios. d) Do we apply tailored heat treatments? Very often, we follow conventional schedules…
This talk describes the summary of the efforts carried out within the BAM Project AGIL.
At BAM, we aimed to thoroughly investigate the microstructure and how it evolves as a function of load and temperature (service), to determine the material properties after different process and service conditions, to properly determine residual stress and the way it impacts mechanical properties and component performance, to properly quantify the impact of (unavoidable?) defects, and to determine heat treatments tailored to the process-specific material (stress relieve, microstructure homogenization etc.).
The Project AGIL was and is intimately coupled with the project ProMoAM, dealing with online monitoring of AM processes.
The quality of additively manufactured components is significantly influenced by the process parameters used during production. Thus, sensors and measuring systems are already commercially available for process monitoring, at least in metal-based additive manufacturing. However, it is not yet possible to detect defects and inhomogeneities directly or indirectly during the building process. The aim of the project ProMoAM is to develop spectroscopic and non-destructive testing methods for the in-situ evaluation of the quality of additively manufactured metal components in laser- or arc-based AM processes. In addition to passive and active methods of thermography, this includes optical tomography, optical emission spectroscopy, eddy current testing, laminography (radiography), X-ray backscattering, particle emission spectroscopy and photoacoustic methods.
Additive manufacturing (AM) of alkali-activated materials is a promising method for producing ceramic precursors, construction elements and other parts. A recently introduced AM process is laser-induced slip casting of lithium aluminate/microsilica slurries, which yields parts with excellent mechanical strengths. To clarify the underlying mechanisms, μ-Raman spectroscopy was applied to parts produced by the process, and the dissolution and hydration of lithium aluminate was studied inter alia using conventional and in-situ X-ray diffraction. The results show that significant dissolution of lithium aluminate occurs, particularly at increased temperatures during laser interaction, which leads to an increase of pH and precipitation of an akopovaite-like Li-Al-CO3 layered double hydroxide. The increase of the pH is likely to induce dissolution of the microsilica and possibly formation of a hydrous lithium aluminosilicate gel. These observations explain the strength evolution of the studied parts and can also aid the development and improvement of related AM methods.
Additively manufactured metallic materials have already started to find application in safety-relevant components. However, this has only happened for certain materials and specific applications and loading conditions, since there is still an extensive lack of knowledge as well as of historical data regarding their mechanical behaviour. This contribution aims to address this lack of understanding and historical data concerning the creep behaviour of the austenitic stainless steel 316L manufactured by Laser-Powder-Bed-Fusion (L-PBF) and the low-cycle-fatigue behaviour of the titanium alloy Ti-6Al-4V manufactured by Laser-Metal-Deposition (LMD). Furthermore, it aims to assess their mechanical behaviour against their conventional counterparts. With that in mind, specimens from conventional and additive materials are tested and their mechanical behaviour analysed based on characteristic curves. To understand the damage behaviours the materials are characterized by destructive and non-destructive techniques before and after failure.
Creep and fracture behavior of conventionally and additively manufactured stainless steel 316L
(2020)
A critical task within the frame of establishing process-structure-property-performance relationships in additive manufacturing (AM) of metals is producing reliable and well-documented material behavior’s data and knowledge regarding the structure-property correlation, including the role of defects. After all, it represents the basis for developing more targeted process optimizations and more reliable predictions of performance in the future. Within this context, this contribution aims to close the actual gap of limited historical data and knowledge concerning the creep behavior of the widely used austenitic stainless steel 316L, manufactured by Laser-Powder-Bed-Fusion (L-PBF). To address this objective, specimens from conventional hot-rolled and AM material were tested under application-relevant conditions according to existing standards for conventional material, and microstructurally characterized before and after failure. The test specimens were machined from single blocks from the AM material. The blocks were manufactured using a standard scan and build-up strategy and were subsequently heat-treated. The creep behavior is described and comparatively assessed based on the creep lifetime and selected creep curves and characteristic values. The effect of defects and microstructure on the material’s behavior is analyzed based on destructive and non-destructive evaluations on selected specimens. The AM material shows shorter creep lives, reaches the secondary creep stage much faster and at a lower strain, and features lower creep ductility compared to its conventional counterpart. The creep damage behavior of the AM material is more microstructure than defect controlled and is characterized by the formation and accumulation of single intergranular damage along the whole volume. Critical features identified are the grain morphology and the grain-boundary as well as the dislocation’s density. Micro-computed tomography (µCT) proves to be an alternative to metallography to analyze the creep damage.
Rapid cooling rates and steep temperature gradients are characteristic of additively manufactured parts and important factors for the residual stress formation. This study examined the influence of heat accumulation on the distribution of residual stress in two prisms produced by Laser Powder Bed Fusion (LPBF) of austenitic stainless steel 316L. The layers of the prisms were exposed using two different border fill scan strategies: one scanned from the centre to the perimeter and the other from the perimeter to the centre. The goal was to reveal the effect of different heat inputs on samples featuring the same solidification shrinkage. Residual stress was characterised in one plane perpendicular to the building direction at the mid height using Neutron and Lab X-ray diffraction. Thermography data obtained during the build process were analysed in order to correlate the cooling rates and apparent surface temperatures with the residual stress results. Optical microscopy and micro computed tomography were used to correlate defect populations with the residual stress distribution. The two scanning strategies led to residual stress distributions that were typical for additively manufactured components: compressive stresses in the bulk and tensile stresses at the surface. However, due to the different heat accumulation, the maximum residual stress levels differed. We concluded that solidification shrinkage plays a major role in determining the shape of the residual stress distribution, while the temperature gradient mechanism appears to determine the magnitude of peak residual stresses.
Methods and materials are presented here, which enable the manufacturing of fine structures using a 3D-printing method known as two-photon polymerization (2PP). As traditional photolithography methods for structuring ceramic slurries do not function with 2PP, due to light scattering on ceramic particles, a novel water-based photoresist with high ceramic loading of extremely well dispersed ceramic nano particles was developed. This photoresist is basically a ceramic slurry containing a photocurable agent and a photoinitiator to be crosslinkable with the 780 nm wavelength femtosecond laser light source of the 2PP machine. It is demonstrated that it is possible to gain a highly transparent and low viscous slurry suitable for 2PP processing. This work shows the development of the slurry, first printing results and the post-printing processes required to form three dimensional ceramic microstructures consisting of alumina toughened zirconia (ATZ).
Ti-6Al-4V alloy is intensively used in the aerospace industry because of its high specific strength. However, the application of Laser Powder Bed Fusion (LPBF) Ti-6Al-4V alloy for structurally critical load-bearing components is limited. One of the main limiting factors affecting the structural integrity, are manufacturing defects. Additionally, the high cooling rates associated with LPBF process result in the formation of large residual stress (RS) with complex fields. Such RS can cause cracking and geometrical distortions of the part even right after production. Also, the microstructure of LPBF Ti-6Al-4V in the as-built condition is significantly different from that of the conventionally produced alloy. All these factors affect the mechanical behavior of the material. Therefore, to improve the material performance it is important to evaluate the individual effect of RS, defects, and microstructure on fatigue life. To this aim Ti-6Al-4V LPBF material in as-built condition and subjected to different post-processing, including two heat treatments (for stress relief and microstructural modification) and Hot Isostatic Pressing (HIP, for densification), were investigated.
Prior to Low Cycle Fatigue (LCF) tests at operating temperature (300°C), the microstructure (phases, crystallographic texture, and grain morphology), the mesostructure (defect shape and distribution), and subsurface RS on the LCF samples were investigated. It was found that the fatigue performance of HIPped samples is similar to that of conventionally produced Ti-6Al-4V. The tensile RS found at the surface of as-built samples decreased the fatigue life compared to heat-treated samples. Additionally, the modification of the microstructure (by heat treatment) did not affect the fatigue performance in the regime of mostly elastic strain. This shows that in the absence of tensile RS the manufacturing defects solely control the failure of LPBF components and densification has the strongest effect on the improvement of the mechanical performance.
Often 3D‐printing and additive manufacturing are mentioned as the 3rd industrial revolution. In this conjunction this book provides a brief overview on additively manufactured metal pieces.
This book fulfills its intension to serve as an educational guide, providing a holistic picture encompassing science, technology and applications for the real‐life use of Metal Additive Manufacturing.
This paper investigates fast and inexpensive measurement methods for defect detection in parts produced by Additive Manufacturing (AM) with special focus on lattice parts made of ceramics. By Lithography-based Ceramic Manufacturing, parts were built both without defects and with typical defects intentionally introduced. These defects were investigated and confirmed by industrial X-ray Computed Tomography. Alternative inexpensive methods were applied afterwards on the parts such as weighing, volume determination by Archimedes method and gas permeability measurement. The results showed, that defects resulting in around 20% of change in volume and mass could be separated from parts free of defects by determination of mass or volume. Minor defects were not detectable as they were in the range of process-related fluctuations. Permeability measurement did not allow to safely identify parts with defects. The measurement methods investigated can be easily integrated in AM process chains to support quality control.
Directed energy deposition is a metal additive manufacturing process that builds parts by joining material in a layer-by-layer fashion on a substrate. Those parts are exposed to rapid thermo-cycles which cause steep stress gradients and the layer-upon-layer manufacturing fosters an anisotropic microstructure, therefore stress relief heat treatment is necessary. The numerical simulation can be used to find suitable parameters for the heat treatment and to reduce the necessary efforts to perform an effective stress relieving. Suitable validation Experiments are necessary to verify the results of the numerical simulation.
In this paper, a 3D coupled thermo-mechanical model is used to simulate the heat treatment of an additive manufactured component to investigate the application of a C-ring geometry for the distortion-based validation of the numerical simulation.
Therefore, the C-ring samples were 3D scanned using a structured light 3D scanner to quantify the distortion after each process step.
The understanding of process-microstructure-property-performance (PMPP) relationships in additive manufacturing (AM) of metals is highly necessary to achieve wide-spread industrial application and replace conventionally manufactured parts, especially regarding safety-relevant applications. To achieve this understanding, reliable data and knowledge regarding material’s microstructure-property relationships (e.g. the role of defects) is needed, since it represents the base for future more targeted process optimizations and more reliable calculations of performance. However, producing reliable material data and assessing the AM material behaviour is not an easy task: big challenges are e.g. the actual lack of standard testing methods for AM materials and the occasional difficulties in finding one-to-one comparable material data for the conventional counterpart.
This work aims to contribute to end this lack of reliable material data and knowledge for the low cycle fatigue behaviour of the most used titanium alloy in aerospace applications (Ti-6Al-4V). For this purpose, two sets of test specimens were investigated. The first set was manufactured from cylindrical rods produced by an optimized DED-L process and the second was manufactured from a hot formed round bar. The test specimens were cyclically loaded until failure in the low-cycle-fatigue (LCF) regime. The tests were carried out according to ISO 12106 between 0.3 to 1.0 % axial strain amplitude from room temperature up to 400°C. The LCF behaviour is described and compared between materials and with literature values based on cyclic deformation curves and strain-based fatigue life curves. Besides, the parameters of Manson-Coffin-Basquin relationship were calculated. The microstructures (initial and after failure) and fracture surfaces were comparative characterized. Thereby, the focus lied on understanding the role of grain morphology and defects on the failure mechanisms and fatigue lifetimes. For this latter characterization, optical microscopy (OM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and micro computed tomography (µCT) were used.
Synchrotron based absorption edge tomography for the analysis of 3D printed polymer embedded MOF
(2019)
Absorption edge tomography, also known as differential tomography at absorption edges, is a method which exploits the sudden change of the attenuation coefficient, when the photon energy crosses the absorption edge of an element. Synchrotron radiation is the best source for absorption edge tomography, because of its small bandwidth, high intensity and easily adjustable photon energy. The synchrotron beamline BAMline at the synchrotron radiation facility BESSY II in Berlin, which is operated by the Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und -prüfung (BAM), provides a monochromatized beam in a photon energy range from 5 keV up to 80 keV with a bandwidth of 2%, when the double multilayer monochromator is used. Together with the microtomography setup, this enables differential tomography with submicron resolution at the K edge of the elements from chromium up to the lanthanides, and up to uranium, when the L edges are used as well.
In this work, metal organic frameworks (MOFs) embedded in polymer are characterized using differential tomography. MOFs are microporous structures of metal ions, coordinated by organic linker molecules, that can be used in a broad field of applications, especially in gas storage and catalysis. In this work, polymer embedded MOFs were extruded into filaments, which were subsequently used for 3d-printing to profit from the specific properties of the MOFs in polymeric materials combined with the arbitrary shapes provided by 3d-printing. For the extrusion, different polymer classes like ABS, polyester- and polyetherurethanes, as well as different MOFs (ZIF-8, ZIF-67, HKUST-1) were used to create MOF containing filaments with a nominal diameter of 3.0 mm. Differential tomography at the edges of the Zn, Co, and Cu was then used to find the distribution of the corresponding MOF in the filament and to analyze the shape of the inclusions.
In additive manufacturing (AM) Laser Metal Deposition (LMD), parts are built by welding layers of powder feedstock onto a substrate. Applications for steel powders include forging tools and structural components for various industries. For large parts, the choice of tool-paths influences the build-rate, the part performance and the distortions in a highly geometry-dependent manner. With weld-path lengths in the range of hundreds of meters, a reliable, automated tool path generation is essential for the usability of LMD processes.
In this contribution, automated tool-path generation approaches are shown and their results are discussed for arbitrary geometries. The investigated path strategies are the classical approaches: “Zig-zag-” and “contour-parallel-strategies”. After generation, the tool-paths are automatically formatted into g-code for experimental build-up and ASCII for a numerical simulation model. Finally, the tool paths are discussed in regards to volume-fill, microstructure and porosity for the experimental samples.
This work presents a part of the IGF project 18737N “Welding distortion simulation” (FOSTA P1140)
Functional materials for energy conversion are important technology drivers needed for the implementation of low carbon energy. Therefore, researchers commonly focus on improving the intrinsic properties of a functional material. However, for applications, the extrinsic properties are at least as important as the intrinsic ones. Consequently, it is important to investigate and understand the external and internal structure of semi-finished products and especially defect dependent properties. The extrinsic properties may change during application and the life cycle of the material as well as through processing and molding steps.
Our studies show how X-ray tomographic (XCT) investigations can contribute to structure investigations in composites and massive samples using the example of magnetic materials for energy conversion. The components are tested non-destructively in 3D in order to localize and characterize cracks, pores, inclusions as well as other defects and their influence on the functional properties and also “in-time” during the life cycle of the material. Exsitu and in-situ experiments performed with non-destructive XCT are predestinated to follow damaging mechanisms of materials under certain load conditions, atmospheres or liquids, e.g. went through several working cycles of a functional material. By combining microtomography with other methods of magnetic and classical material characterization, unique statements about the structure and the functional properties can be made.
From the applications point of view, sometimes complex, three-dimensional geometries are needed to fully exploit the functional properties of the materials, e.g. to ensure a high surface area for heat exchange. Since many functional materials are brittle and difficult to form, shaping is often a big challenge. In principle, additive manufacturing processes offer the possibility to produce complex, porous components from poorly formable alloys.
If all stages of additive manufacturing are accompanied by X-ray tomographic imaging, the process of finding the optimal parameters for material processing can be significantly accelerated.
Based on the quality control of the initial powder material used and also investigations of the shape and arrangement of defects within the molten structure and their relationship with the melting path scanning strategy, Xray tomography has proven to be an ideal tool for additive manufacturing, even for functional materials. Overall, tomographic methods are important tools for the development of functional materials to application maturity.
The laser-based direct energy deposition (DED) as a technology for additive manufacturing allows the production of near net shape components. Industrial applications require a stable process to ensure reproducible quality. Instabilities in the manufacturing process can lead to faulty components which do not meet the required properties.
The DED process is adjusted by various parameters such as laser power, velocity, powder mass flow and spot diameter, which interact with each other. A frequently used comparative parameter in welding is the energy per unit length and is calculated from the laser power and the velocity in laser welding. The powder per unit length comparative parameter in the DED process has also be taken into account, because this filler material absorbs energy in addition to the base material.
This paper deals with the influence of mass energy as a comparative parameter for determining the properties of additively manufactured parts. The same energy per unit length of 60 J/mm as well as the same powder per unit length of 7.2 mg/mm can be adjusted with different parameter sets. The energy per unit length and the powder per unit length determine the mass energy. The laser power is varied within the experiments between 400 W and 900 W. Energy per unit length and powder per unit length are kept constant by adjusting velocity and powder mass flow. Using the example of Inconel 718, experiments are carried out with the determined parameter sets. In a first step, individual tracks are produced and analyzed by means of micro section. The geometry of the tracks shows differences in height and width. In addition, the increasing laser power leads to a higher dilution of the base material. To determine the suitability of the parameters for additive manufacturing use, the individual tracks are used to build up parts with a square base area of 20x20 mm². An investigation by Archimedean principle shows a higher porosity with lower laser power. By further analysis of the micro sections, it can be seen that at low laser power, connection errors occur between the tracks.
The results show that laser power, velocity and powder mass flow have to be considered in particular, because a constant mass energy can lead to different geometric as well as microscopic properties.
Rapid cooling rates and steep temperature gradients are characteristic of additively manufactured (AM) parts and important factors for residual stress formation which have implications on structural integrity. This study examined the influence of heat input on the distribution of residual stresses in two prisms produced by laser powder bed fusion (L-PBF) of austenitic stainless steel 316L.
The layers of the prisms were exposed using two distinct helix scanning strategies: one scanned from the centre to the perimeter and the other from the perimeter to the centre. Residual stresses were characterised at one plane perpendicular to the building direction at half of its build height using neutron diffraction. In addition, the defect distribution was analysed via micro X-ray computed tomography (µCT) in a twin specimen.
Both scanning strategies reveal residual stress distributions typical for AM: compressive stresses in the bulk and tensile stresses at the surface. However, temperature gradients and maximum stress levels differ due to the different heat input. Regarding the X-ray µCT results, they show an accumulation of defects at the corners where the laser direction turned through 90°.
The results demonstrate that neutron diffraction and X-ray µCT can be successfully used as non-destructive methods to analyse through-thickness residual stress and defect distribution in AM parts, and in the presented case, illustrate the influence of scanning strategies. This approach contributes to deeper assessment of structural integrity of AM materials and components.
Virtual-lab-based determination of a macroscopic yield function for additively manufactured parts
(2019)
This work aims for an yield function description of additively manufactured (AM) parts of S316L steel at the continuum-mechanical macro-scale by means of so-called virtual experiments using a crystal plasticity (CP) model at meso-scale. Additively manufactured parts require the consideration of the specific process-related microstructure, which prevents this material to be macroscopically treated as isotropic, because of crystallographic as well as topological textures.
EBSD/CT-Scans from in-house additively manufactured specimen extract the unique microstructural topology which is converted to a representative volume element (RVE) with grain structure and crystal orientations.
Crystal plasticity model parameters on this RVE are calibrated and validated by means of mechanical testing under different texture angles. From virtual experiments on this RVE, yield loci under various loading conditions are simulated. The scale bridging from meso- to macro-scale is realised by the identification of the simulated yield loci as a modified anisotropic Barlat-type yield model representation.
Using non-optimum combination of manufacturing parameters in selective laser melting (SLM) may lead to reduction of quality of component: defects generation, distortion of geometry and even cracking. Usually, the optimization of parameters is performed by changing volumetric energy density (Ev) and selecting parameters giving low porosity values. However, not only low porosity but also stable microstructure and low residual stresses will help to achieve advanced mechanical behavior of the component.
In present work, we investigated cuboid-shaped Ti-6Al-4V samples produced with different manufacturing parameters. The parameters leading to the same Ev were considered as well as parameters which are not included in Ev. Residual stresses in subsurface region were investigated by synchrotron X-ray diffraction, which allows to penetrate around 100 µm from the surface therefore overcome the problem of high roughness of SLM components without additional sample preparation. Only tensile stresses were found along the building direction, that can play critical role especially during cyclic loading. The pore shape and spatial distribution obtained by computed tomography varied for samples produced with the same Ev. However, by using some process parameters it was possible to decrease residual stresses and obtain uniform α+β Ti microstructure and relatively low porosity. Additionally, it was found that not included in Ev (e.g., base plate position, focus distance) should be considered as additional manufacturing parameters during SLM process.
Additive manufacturing of alkali-activated materials currently attracts a lot of attention, because of the possibility to produce customized high-performance elements for a range of applications, potentially being more resource-efficient than conventionally produced parts. Here, we describe a new additive manufacturing process for alkali-activated materials that is based on selective laser-heating of lithium aluminate/microsilica slurries. The new process-material combination allows to manufacture elements with complex geometries at high building rates and high accuracy. The process is versatile and transferrable to structures of sizes differing by orders of magnitude. The mechanical strength of the obtained materials was in the range of values reported for conventional metakaolin-based geopolymers, and superior to what has been hitherto reported for alkali-activated materials produced by additive manufacturing. This mechanical performance was obtained despite the fact that the degree of reaction of the lithium aluminate and the microsilica was low, suggesting that significant reactions took place only at the surface of the microsilica particles.
Im Rahmen des Themenfeld Projektes „Process Monitoring of AM“ (ProMoAM) evaluiert die BAM gegenwärtig die Anwendbarkeit verschiedenster ZfP-Verfahren, darunter die Thermografie, zur Prozessüberwachung in der additiven Fertigung von Metallen in Hinblick auf die Qualitätssicherung.
In diesem Beitrag werden SWIR-Thermografiemessungen während des Bauprozesses mittels Laser Pulver Auftragsschweißen (LPA) vorgestellt. Eine Herausforderung im Rahmen dieser Messungen liegt in der Positionierung der Kamera, welche entweder fixiert am Schweißarm, also mitbewegt, oder fixiert in der Baukammer, also stationär, erfolgen kann, wobei beide Varianten mit individuellen Vor- und Nachteilen verbunden sind. Eine stationäre Befestigung der Kamera ermöglicht zwar eine einfachere Zuordnung der Messdaten zu der jeweiligen Position im Bauteil, führt jedoch bei komplexeren Geometrien zwangsläufig zu Problemen durch Abschattungen und zu defokussierten Bereichen. Zur Auswertung von Thermogrammen, welche durch eine mit dem Schweißarm mitbewegte Kamera aufgenommen wurden, sind hingegen für jedes Bild akkurate Positionsdaten der Kamera nötig um die Messdaten einer Position im Bauteil zuzuordnen. Da die Positionsdaten des Schweißarmes im allgemeinen Fall durch die Anlagensoftware nicht zur Verfügung gestellt werden, muss diese Information durch zusätzliche Messungen aufgezeichnet werden. Hierzu verwenden wir einen an der Kamera befestigten Beschleunigungssensor. Dieser ermöglicht einen zeitlichen Abgleich mit dem vorprogrammierten Verfahrweg des Schweißarmes, welcher im Allgemeinen noch Unsicherheiten bezüglich genauer Geschwindigkeiten und Beschleunigungen offenlässt. Weiterhin untersuchen wir den Einfluss des empfindlichen Spektralbereiches der IR-Kamera durch den Vergleich von Messungen mit verschiedenen schmalbandigen Bandpassfiltern (25 nm FWHM) in einem Bereich von 1150 nm bis 1550 nm.
By allowing economic on demand manufacturing of highly customized and complex workpieces, metal based additive manufacturing (AM) has the prospect to revolutionize many industrial areas. Since AM is prone to the formation of defects during the building process, a fundamental requirement for AM to become applicable in most fields is the ability to guarantee the adherence to strict quality and safety standards. A possible solution for this problem lies in the deployment of various in-situ monitoring techniques. For most of these techniques, the application to AM is still very poorly understood. Therefore, the BAM in its mission to provide safety in technology has initiated the project “Process Monitoring of AM” (ProMoAM). In this project, a wide range of in-situ process monitoring techniques, including active and passive thermography, optical tomography, optical emission and absorption spectroscopy, eddy current testing, laminography, X-ray backscattering and photoacoustic methods, are applied to laser metal deposition (LMD), laser powder bed fusion and wire arc AM. Since it is still unclear which measured quantities are relevant for the detection of defects, these measurements are performed very thoroughly. In successive steps, the data acquired by all these methods is fused and compared to the results of reference methods such as computer tomography and ultrasonic immersion testing. The goal is to find reliable methods to detect the formation of defects during the building process. The detailed acquired data sets may also be used for comparison with simulations.
Here, we show first results of high speed (> 300 Hz) thermographic measurements of the LMD process in the SWIR range using 316L as building material. For these experiments, the camera was mounted fixed to the welding arm of the LMD machine to keep the molten pool in focus, regardless of the shape of the specimen. As the thermograms do not contain any information about the current spatial position during the building process, we use an acceleration sensor to track the movement and synchronize the measured data with the predefined welding path. This allows us to reconstruct the geometry of the workpieces and assign the thermographic data to spatial positions. Furthermore, we investigate the influence of the acquisition wavelength on the thermographic data by comparing measurements acquired with different narrow bandpass filters (50 nm FWHM) in a spectral range from 1150 nm to 1550 nm.
This research was funded by BAM within the Focus Area Materials.
As a part of ProMoAM project, we are optimizing a prototype X-ray backscatter to reach NDT requirements, and thereafter to apply it for process monitoring. Moreover, we studied the capability of a radiography approach to detect artificial defects in AM components made by laser powder bed fusion (L-PBF).
Additiv gefertigte Prüfkörper aus Polyamid 12 (Laser Sinter Verfahren) und Acrylnitril-Butadien-Styrol (Fused Layer Modeling Verfahren) wurden über 2000 Stunden künstlich bewittert und ihr Alterungsverhalten untersucht. Die Ergebnisse wurden anschließend mit denen von Prüfkörpern verglichen, welche auf dieselbe Weise künstlich bewittert, aber mittels konventionellem Kunststoff-Spritzguss hergestellt wurden.
Die Erkenntnisse dienen für die Entwicklung einer Strategie für eine Qualitätskontrolle von additiv gefertigten Kunststoffteilen.
For metal-based additive manufacturing, sensors and measuring systems for monitoring of the energy source, the build volume, the melt pool and the component geometry are already commercially available. Further methods of optics, spectroscopy and non-destructive testing are described in the literature as suitable for in-situ application, but there are only a few reports on practical implementations.
Therefore, a new BAM project aims to develop process monitoring methods for the in-situ evaluation of the quality of additively manufactured metal components. In addition to passive and active thermography, this includes optical tomography, optical emission and absorption spectroscopy, eddy current testing, laminography, X-ray backscattering and photoacoustic methods. These methods are used in additive manufacturing systems for selective laser melting, laser metal deposition and wire arc additive manufacturing. To handle the sometimes huge amounts of data, algorithms for efficient preprocessing are developed and characteristics of the in-situ data are extracted and correlated to defects and inhomogeneities, which are determined using reference methods such as computer tomography and metallography. This process monitoring and fusion of data of different measurement techniques should result in a significant reduction of costly and time-consuming, destructive or non-destructive tests after the production of the component and at the same time reduce the production of scrap.
Here, first results of simultaneous measurements of optical emission spectroscopy and thermography during the laser metal deposition process using 316L as building material are presented. Temperature values are extracted from spectroscopic data by fitting of blackbody emission spectra to the experimental data and compared with results from a thermographic camera. Measurements with and without powder flow reveal significant differences between welding at a pristine metal surface and previously melted positions on the build plate, illustrating the significant influence of the partial oxidation of the surface during the first welding process on subsequent welding. The measurement equipment can either be mounted stationary or following the laser path. While first results were obtained in the stationary mode, future applications for online monitoring of the build of whole parts in the mobile mode are planned.
This research was funded by BAM within the focus area Material.