MONITORING FOR CRACKS IN METAL L-PBF USING GAS-BORNE ACOUSTIC EMISSION

• Karabo Moore Moore Department of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Central University of Technology, Bloemfontein, South Africa https://orcid.org/0009-0007-1556-7201
• Dean Kouprianoff Department of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Central University of Technology, Bloemfontein, South Africa https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9409-8472
• Danie Louw National Laser Centre, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, Pretoria, South Africa https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2493-4903
• Ina Yadroitsava Department of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Central University of Technology, Bloemfontein, South Africa https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3132-5724
• Igor Yadroitsev Department of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Central University of Technology, Bloemfontein, South Africa https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7556-8675

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.7166/34-4-2981

Abstract

Delaminations and cracks are detrimental phenomena that hinder the quality of the final product in metal additive manufacturing. The effective use of other online monitoring systems that can detect these deformations and delaminations during the manufacturing process is currently being developed and implemented in practice. In this paper, gas-borne acoustic emission is used to show that cracks/delaminations that occur during the metal laser powder bed fusion build process can be detected and distinguished from other machine noise. The peaks in the amplitude of the signal emitted in the time domain could be used to indicate the occurrence of cracks during the build process. The frequency characteristics of the signal could also clearly indicate the occurrence of the macro cracks and differentiate between the signals from the cracks and the machine noise.