Quality Improvement of Critical AM Parts (QICAP)

Quality Improvement of Critical AM Parts program significantly enhances quality of AM parts so a broader range of parts can be considered. Inspection improvements occur in two ways– in-process inspection (for every layer of the part during build) and final CT inspection after print completion.   Flightware has implemented AM in-process inspection of the melt layer under prior programs with DOD and NASA, demonstrating  high reliability. Now we will extend that work to detect flaws in the spread powder layer, which often leads to melt defects in the part. Furthermore, we will also demonstrate that powder flaws like stray spatter particles can be repaired at the layer level, like previous successful demonstration of in-process repair of melt flaws. For final inspection, we will generate higher quality CT scans for thick, steel parts such as used in Armament. We extend the successful work in Phase I to use Fan-Beam X-rays enhanced using Model Based Iterative Reconstruction (MBIR) to produce much better CT quality. This provides improved ability to detect very small, but important, internal flaws like porosity. This work is performed by a team of several firms that have collaborated successfully for several years to develop improvements in AM quality.