High Throughput Testing of Additive Manufacturing

Additive manufacturing (AM) fills a technical need for the US Navy to produce on-site, on-demand, cost efficient parts. However, the lack of established procedures for AM machines and processes introduces significant variability in their mechanical behavior. A high throughput method is needed to characterize the variability in the mechanical properties of AM materials using large statistics. To meet this need, Corvid will leverage their computational modeling and test design capabilities with UofLs additive manufacturing expertise to develop an innovative mechanical test approach using miniature specimens. This mechanical testing will be combined with thermal imaging of the melting process and X-ray computed tomography (CT) of the grain/porosity to thoroughly characterize AM materials across various length scales. Lastly advanced algorithms will be developed to correlate the mechanical properties with the microstructure and build process to create a non-destructive approach for inspecting quality of AM materials. By combining these elements of the process-structure-property relationship, Corvid and UofL will provide the Navy with a robust, high throughput testing approach to understand the variability of additive manufactured materials and advance computational models of the AM process.