A US aerospace supplier was struggling with repeated quality issues during additive manufacturing using Laser Powder Bed Fusion (L-PBF). Components produced on an EOS M270 machine exhibited inconsistent porosity and faulty internal geometries, which meant that several print runs had to be discarded. Despite intensive error analysis, the cause remained unclear for a long time. Standard stored layer images were not sufficient to reliably detect subtle deviations in the process.
Only by using the optical inspection system Fringe Inspection from Phase3D was it possible to identify the defect: Metal powder had accumulated on the doctor blade assembly and was falling back onto the component surface in an uncontrolled manner. This disruption occurred in particular when slightly overbuilt structures touched the squeegee, causing vibrations to loosen the accumulated powder. The resulting disturbances were up to 200 micrometers high – about four times the defined layer thickness.
Fringe Inspection recorded precise height data for each individual layer using structured light measurement and visualized the deviations in real time. This data was used to define an internal process limit: From a powder layer thickness of over 200 micrometers, the construction process was aborted. In addition, a fixed blade was attached to the resting point of the doctor blade to prevent the build-up of excess powder.
The impact on production costs was considerable. With a previous reject rate of five percent for a 50-part series, the annual losses amounted to around 63,000 US dollars. After integrating the system, these losses fell by more than 90 percent. The early detection of critical process deviations enabled the user to switch from reactive analysis to proactive process monitoring – a step that significantly increased the efficiency and reliability of L-PBF production.
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