NDE of ceramic components manufactured by additive technologies
Additive Manufacturing (AM) adds in the first instance a new shaping method to the portfolio of established shaping methods of ceramics. New, unseen, shapes can be created directly from the computer model, potentially after numerical optimization (functional design). Sensory or actuator functions can be added by printing functional layers.
The additive shaping or process will not result in successful components without considering the technology chain from raw materials and preprocessing to post processing and testing. Non-destructive evaluation (NDE) shall be applied ideally already to prefinished components for optimizing process steps and reducing waste. Additive methods offer new challenges (e.g. internal stresses, imperfect interfaces between layers) and new opportunities for NDE methods.
These new opportunities are opened up by investigating thinner layers of materials directly in-operando of the AM shaping process. Ceramics structures, often difficult to investigate, will become better accessible.
Fraunhofer IKTS qualifies new optical methods for in-operando use during additive manufacturing. Recent examples of work will be presented.
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