In-situ Monitoring for Blown Powder Additive Manufacturing

Goals of phase I: Determine the feasibility of structured light measurement to perform in situ monitoring on blown powder additive manufacturing (AM)   Validate initial proof-of-concept structured light measurement system on SPEE3D’s WarpSPEE3D 3D Metal Blown Metal Printer SPEE3D is a subcontractor on this effort and anticipates supporting in-situ monitoring technology testing on-site. See letter of Intent. Argonne National Laboratory is a subcontractor on this effort, to aid in technical development of the optics, hardware, software of the in-situ monitoring system. See letter of Intent.   Locate an end-user and customer for the transition to phase II Additive Monitoring Inc. has connected successfully with stakeholders of blown powder AM, such as Oklahoma City Air Logistics Complex PROACT lab, Pacer Edge personel, Operation Thunder, etc.   Technology Vision: Additive manufacturing (AM) is transitioning from prototyping to end-use manufacturing and repair applications.   Blown powder AM in particular has incredible potential to produce large, high quality parts from scratch, and repair or reclad existing parts for the DoD. The commercial market-size estimation is approximately $1B.   However, to utilize blown powder AM for production, components must qualified and certified. While powder bed fusion some systems of verification, blown powder has no form of quality monitoring.   Additive Monitoring Inc. has developed IP surrounding in situ monitoring for powderbed-based monitoring; technology which can also provide in situ monitoring for blown powder with modification. Our in situ monitoring technology is well suited for blown powder because we rapidly measure the shape of deposited material, which can objectively verify the shape of blown powder accumulation to ensure adequate material rates and detect defects. We provide objective shape information, without the need for a blackbox network, so that certification processes can be designed around real data with units. Our technology is inexpensive, and can be retrofitted onto the blown powder nozzle