Machine Independent, Feature-Specific AM Parameters for Laser Powder Bed Fusion Additive Manufacturing to Enable DOD Ownership of Data to Produce High Quality, As-Built Material for Complex Geometry Structural Parts

The proposed work is to demonstrate the ability to predict Feature-Specific Parameters (FSP) for the Additive Manufacturing (AM) of high-quality, net-shape, as-built Ti-6Al-4V material for structural parts using commercial Laser Powder Bed Fusion (LPBF) AM equipment and, as a consequence, also provide the Air Force the transparency and ownership of the required digital data for the FSP parameters to reproduce structural parts as needed. A software interface will be developed to create an AM process simulation software plug-in for two commercial LPBF systems. This interface will fetch the AM build plan track vectors generated by the LPBF system and return the FSP generated using AM process simulations from which the LPBF system will produce the build. The simulated time-temperature history for AM deposition, stress relief, and HIP will be used to predict grain size, microstructure, tensile properties, and fatigue life, which will be validated using mechanical testing data. The proposed work will deliver three high-quality structural parts and the software source code to create the AM process simulation plug-in to generate FSP for commercial LPBF systems. The three parts are T-38 aircraft dorsal cover rib for sustainment repair and two rotating detonation engines for hypersonic propulsion.