On-the-fly control of laser additive manufacturing

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Laser additive manufacturing uses a tightly focused laser beam scanned over a precursor material (such as metal powder) to "write" a 3D metal component layer by layer, allowing the creation of lightweight designs directly from a computer drawing. Even though laser additive manufacturing is a billion dollar industry undergoing exponential growth, its widespread adoption is being impeded by lack of an in situ quality assurance technique. Solving the QA/control problem will be of key strategic importance for Canadian industry and their ability to innovate in highly competitive industries, such as automotive, aerospace and medical device manufacturing. We will exploit a novel coherent imaging technique invented in Canada to directly high-speed image the laser writing process while it is happening. In addition to providing direct quality assurance for every 3D pixel, we will use our new technology to close the feedback loop to allow on-the-fly compensation of process parameters to achieve the targeted composition. Errors will be erased as they are written. This will reduce failures and has the potential to open the door to novel geometries, writing techniques and materials currently not possible due to the inherent randomness of the laser writing process. Outcomes of this project include: i) training of nine students/researchers in a field of key important to Canadian advanced manufacturing, ii) reduction of novel component process development time, iii) novel design paradigms enabled by on-the-fly control, and iv) improved understanding of the underlying physics happening at the tip of a high power laser beam.