Reliability Centered Additive Manufacturing Design Framework

The research objective of this proposal is to demonstrate the feasibility of a reliability-centered AM design framework to mitigate manufacturing defects, predict mechanical properties under a variety of loading conditions and damage scenarios, and perform in-situ inspection of level of performance under operational conditions. The proposed framework will focus on the powder bed process and will account for complex part geometry and small lot size. The mitigation of defects will be performed using existing physics-based simulation models, the predictions of mechanical properties and in-situ inspection will be performed using the digital image correlation (DIC) technique. The DIC data will be analyzed for change detection and anomaly flagging using statistical hypothesis testing. Laboratory coupons will be produced in order to perform dimensional/functional characterization, metallography, elevated temperature mechanical property determination, in-situ health monitoring for a sample load case, and to perform post-test assessment. The design framework will utilize reusable software components connected using a service oriented architecture and driven using a user-customizable control logic.