From complex design opportunities to speedier production, additive manufacturing (AM) offers many unique advantages for today's manufacturers. But each of those unique advantages stand to challenge, or be challenged by, an essential part of the manufacturing value chain: quality assurance. For TCT Magazine's annual focus on manufacturing quality technologies, we're taking a look at the growing importance of quality and inspection solutions for AM by speaking to the companies leading the charge to provide greater visibility and assurance for AM processes.
Here, Dr David Menzies (DM), Chief Commercial Officer at Additive Assurance, a developer of process monitoring and quality assurance solutions for laser powder bed fusion additive manufacturing, shares with TCT the unique challenges AM poses for quality assurance, and why technologies such as its AMiRIS in situ process monitoring solution are playing a crucial role as AM transitions from prototyping to production applications.
TCT: What unique challenges does AM present for manufacturers in terms of quality control compared to more traditional manufacturing processes?
DM: Quality is a paramount concern for all manufacturers regardless of the processes that they use to generate their products. Significant investments are made to ensure that quality irregularities can be identified as early as possible in manufacturing processes. The cost of the lost production time and raw materials vs the profitability of the production run dictate how much investment is needed and at what stage of the production process to mitigate this risk.
Metal additive manufacturing differs from traditional metal forming processes. With the capability of having more design freedom, more complex geometrical designs have been developed to reduce material cost, reduce the number of parts and/or to enhance performance of the intended part or product. Hand-in-hand with this new design space, it creates complexities in the manner by which quality control and inspection can be performed. Additionally, metal additive manufacturing processes, such as laser powder bed fusion, are extremely intricate. The smallest changes in the manufacturing process, such as powder batch-to-batch variation or laser output, can lead to different solidification characteristics and result in variability in quality.
As additive manufacturing is relatively new compared with traditional casting or forging techniques, there is less historical data to rely on for sign-off on final product quality. As such, in some more regulated industries there is a large impost forced on the manufacturers through requiring 100% inspection with techniques such as Computed Tomography (CT) scans. With more quality data captured during the production process, the requirement for these post-production quality checks can be reduced which will have a large impact on the time for a production batch to be approved which can unlock revenue faster and/or speed up the production cycle.
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TCT: Additive Assurance recently partnered with Additive Industries to integrate AMiRIS into its MetalFab systems. This is just one example of the recent collaborations around quality control we've seen within additive manufacturing. What do you think is driving that?
Additive Assurance
DM: In laser powder bed fusion (PBF-LB/M), some production runs can last for a significantly long time compared to traditional processes. As such, detection of a likely failure early in the process presents a benefit to such circumstances. This creates the need from a productivity perspective, especially in circumstances where the profitability of production is thin. Lost time and materials in these circumstances have a large impact on financial performance, and any new methods to mitigate this are of clear interest to manufacturers. With increasing adoption of PBF-LB/M, more low profitability production is being opened up and at the other end of the spectrum higher quality requirement production is also increasing.
In low profitability production, minimising losses of time and materials and reducing the time for release of parts is critical. For high-quality requirement production, more data is becoming a requirement. Especially in regulated industries, such as aerospace or medical, the need for in-process monitoring is clear not only to manufacturers but also to regulatory bodies. For both of these reasons, in-situ monitoring has come closer to the forefront of discussions.
New standards such as ISO/ASTM 52930_2021 (E) now outline requirements for in process monitoring of additive manufacturing for the qualification of parts. These requirements have started to feed into requirements and specifications for outsourcing production to service bureaus and for tenders in new PBF-LB/M machine sales.
As a result of the above factors, what we are seeing is more collaboration between inspection system providers, PBF-LB/M machine makers and customers in bringing to the floor more integrated solutions that meet the ultimate customers’ needs. This is creating a perfect storm for the industry to grow further.
As a key innovator in the PBF-LB/M industry, Additive Industries have identified this need through discussions with customers and made that pioneering move as an OEM.
TCT: As additive manufacturing continues to move into production applications, how would you describe the importance of technologies like AMiRIS in supporting that adoption?
DM: As additive manufacturing transitions from prototyping to production applications, and for the further expansion of the industries that are served, technologies like AMiRIS play a critical role in supporting this adoption by addressing several key challenges. These include quality control, process optimisation and scalability.
Quality Control: Real-time monitoring and quality control enables manufacturers to identify and address issues during the AM process as well as collecting and documenting proof for QMS. This helps ensure the production of high-quality parts that meet the required specifications.
Process Optimisation: Data analytics and process optimisation tools allow manufacturers to optimise their AM processes for efficiency and productivity. By analysing process data, manufacturers can identify areas for improvement and make the necessary adjustments. Many customers using our AMiRIS system experienced a real 'aha' moment and told us that suddenly they could understand why some of their designs often fail. Collecting and analysing the data from AMiRIS allowed them to implement minor changes in the design and print successful parts.
Scalability: As AMiRIS is available as retrofit solution to many PBF-LB machines, the data can be acquired across a range of different machines. This is important as many manufacturers run 2 to 3 different machines across their production floor to minimise supply chain risks. Using the AMiRIS system gives manufacturers a unique advantage to scale their production while maintaining consistent quality across all machines.
MQ
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