Rapid Part Qualification Methodology of Aircraft Metallic Components using Direct Digital Manufacturing Technologies

The objective of this Phase I proposal is to demonstrate feasibility of heuristic and adaptive design for direct digital manufacturing (DDM) of Ti-6Al-4V parts using LENSTM, NDE and limited mechanical testing for achieving low-cost certification. The Phase I approach is based on the principles of similitude and dimensionless analysis. The process design for the building blocks of the part is created using a dimensionless governing equation. This allows the design to be scaled to the physical dimensions needed for the part. The heuristics of part design is such that the thermal path of the material during the deposit of a building block is automatically matched with the thermal path during the deposit of the part. This allows the use of test data from the deposit of building blocks for part certification. Demonstration deposits of the building blocks and the part will be produced and tested as per the AMS 4999 specification. The test data for all building blocks in the part will be fused in order to determine the expected minima for the part material properties. Limited mechanical testing will performed on the part deposit in order to verify its properties with respect the computed minima from the building block deposit. The design procedures for the building block deposit and the part deposit will be documented in a draft DDM procedure specification. The experimental data will be documented as a DDM process qualification record.