In Situ Inspection of Additive Manufactured Metallic Parts Using Laser Ultrasonics

Additive manufacturing (AM) is a very promising technique for rapid, low-cost production of aircraft parts directly from a CAD file. AM is especially appealing for complex parts that would be costly or impossible to fabricate by machining or casting. At the current time there are no reliable, cost-effective techniques to qualify the finished parts. Several government studies have noted this gap and urged increased efforts to develop improved techniques for part qualification. In Phase I we demonstrated the feasibility of applying laser ultrasonic testing to evaluate each deposited layer in real time during the build process. This in-line inspection has the benefit of part qualification layer-by-layer, ensuring finished parts that require no further testing.In Phase II we will again team with Penn State Applied Research Laboratory. In Year 1 we will complete the technology development based on the testing of samples provided by Penn State. In Year 2 we will develop a prototype in-line inspection system that will be installed and tested on a production machine at Penn State.