Additive Manufacturing on a Higher Level - Final Steps in DED Towards First Time Right

Today’s manufacturing processes, especially 3D printing with powder or wire, presuppose Industry 4.0 solutions, which require supervision of every single production step. Transforming machine elements into intelligent cyber-physical systems involves the right manufacturing tools in combination with the integration of smart sensors for condition and process monitoring.
The wire-based laser metal deposition (DED—LB/M-w) process is considered particularly efficient and resource-saving due to the direct and complete deposition of the wire material used. Together with the high focusability and controllability of the laser radiation, which enables an exact deposition of energy to a substrate, the DED—LB/M-w achieves significantly higher precision and flexibility in its applicability than other processes. In comparison, the DED-LB/M-w process is associated with lower contamination and health risks as well as a cost-effective deposition material. In particular, processing heads with coaxial supported wire are the tools of choice when it comes to DED—LB/M-w. This application-specific intensity distribution is the ideal one when it comes to smoothening the process – by preheating the wire – and to full direction independence – thanks to the symmetrical laser beam geometry.
To keep this precision stable during the entire process and to assess the quality of the 3D structures, permanent process monitoring is required. As photonic solutions are by nature contactless processes, it is advantageous that the sensor light can be coupled directly into the beam path of the processing laser and the sensor can measure the surface topography in micrometer resolution. In this case, the production process can be linked directly to the CAD data set, the process can be controlled in such a way that geometric deviations from the target geometry are eliminated, and first-time-right is no longer a pious hope anymore. We are talking about controlled, individualized lot size 1 and first-time -right production based on OCT sensor technology.