Online Geometry Quality Management during Directed Energy Deposition using Laser Line Scaner

Additive manufacturing (AM) is a powerful and promising manufacturing technology due to its advantages of material saving, mass customization and small-quantity production of custom-designed products. However, current situation of lacking quality management in 3D printing process is the key barrier of adopting this advanced technology. Geometry inaccuracy of 3D printed components is one of the main quality problems for AM, especially when the final product requires high precision in its geometry. In this study, an online geometry quality management method for continuous monitoring during the direct energy deposition (DED) process was developed using a laser line scanner. Our proposed methodology comprises: (1) real-time track-by-track scanning of multi-layer single-track component, (2) online geometry extraction of multi-layer single-track component during printing process, and (3) online plotting and comparison of the as-designed and as-built models.