PowderCleanse - Automated powder recycling and quality assurance for enhanced additive manufacturing material reuse

金属增材制造（AM）通常被认为是制造业的未来，在零件设计和复杂性方面提供了无限的可能性，最小的材料浪费以及通过互联网在世界任何地方制造零件的能力。增材制造的一个方面受到相对有限的关注，但却是增材制造所依赖的基础，那就是粉末管理。粉末床增材制造工艺通常使用高达20公斤的粉末为每1公斤制造的零件。这意味着增材制造用户必须能够在加工过程中有效地处理和回收大量粉末。在当前一代的增材制造机器中，粉末处理设备对粉末的可追溯性和粉末质量都有潜在的风险。这主要是由于粉末暴露于环境和使用非最佳设备造成的。powdercleaner项目将开发并演示一种有效的粉末管理解决方案，该解决方案利用数字连接来监控和控制过程的各个方面。重点创新将用于以下方面：金属粉末筛分，在线过程监控，异物污染检测，全封闭式粉末处理环境。powdercleaner系统将通过工业咨询委员会（IAB）的形成直接由最终用户的需求驱动。IAB将作为最终用户的代言人和beta测试组。

Metal additive manufacturing (AM) is often billed as the future of manufacturing, providing unlimited possibilities in terms of part design and complexity, minimal material wastage and the ability to manufacture parts anywhere in the world through the internet. An aspect of AM that receives relatively limited attention, yet underpins the foundation that AM relies upon, is powder management. Powder bed AM processes typically use up to 20 kg of powder for each 1 kg of manufactured part. This means that AM users must be able to effectively handle and recycle vast amounts of powder during the process. In the current generation of AM machines the powder handling equipment provide a potential risk to both powder traceability and powder quality. This is largely driven by exposure of the powder to the environment and the use of non-optimal equipment. The PowderCleanse project will develop and demonstrate an effective solution for powder management which utilises digital connectivity to both monitor and control every aspect of the process. Key innovations will be developed for; metal powder sieving, online process monitoring, foreign body contamination detection and fully enclosed powder handling environments. The PowderCleanse system will be directly driven by the needs of end user through the formation of an industrial advisory board (IAB). The IAB will act as both the voice of end-users and as a beta test group.