Chicago-based manufacturer of metal 3D printing systems and subsidiary of Philips Service Industries, has developed a closed-loop quality control system for their Electron Beam Additive Manufacturing (EBAM) systems.
The Interlayer Real-time Imaging & Sensing System (IRISS), monitors the 3D printing process in real time and can make adjustments if necessary. It provides consistent process control for part geometry, mechanical properties, microstructure, and metal chemistry for large-scale 3D printed parts.
“Sciaky’s IRISS closed-loop control is in a class by itself,” said Mike Riesen, general manager of Sciaky, Inc. “It is a big reason why EBAM is the most advanced metal additive manufacturing processes in the market for large-scale parts.”
According to Lockheed Martin, a partner that has been using Sciaky’s EBAM systems to produce critical parts for aerospace applications, the feedback-loop system provides them with the repeatability needed. Slade Gardner, Ph.D. and LM Fellow at Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company, said in an article in Additive Manfuacturing Magazine: “We know more about the creation of each additive part than we can reasonably know about parts created other ways. In the future, the data could be marshaled to streamline the process to a degree that goes well beyond just replacing one metalworking operation with another.”
The EBAM system can produce parts up to a size of 5.79 meters in length using metals such as titanium, tantalum, niobium, tungsten, molybdenum, Inconel, aluminum, stainless steels, nickel alloys, and more. It is also said to be one of the fastest metal deposition systems currently on the market, featuring gross deposition rates up to 9 kg of metal per hour. The dual wirefeed option additionally allows for combining two different metal alloys into a single melt pool in order to create custom alloy parts.
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