Measurement of powder bed density in powder bed fusion additive manufacturing processes

Published

October 5, 2016

Author(s)

Gregor Jacob, M A. Donmez, Shawn P. Moylan, John A. Slotwinski

Abstract

There are many factors influencing the additive manufacturing (AM) processes resulting in high degree of variation in process outcomes. Therefore, quantifying these factors and their correlations to the process outcomes are important challenges to overcome for widespread adoption of this emerging technology. In powder bed fusion AM process, one of these influencing factors is the actual density of the powder layers on the powder bed. This paper introduces a method to determine the powder bed density (PBD) during the actual build process. Uncertainty analysis is also presented associated with this method. The implementation example shows that the measurement method has small enough uncertainty to be able to detect small changes of PBD across the build platform due to irregularities in powder characteristics and/or the spreading mechanism.

Citation

Measurement Science and Technology

Volume

27

Pub Type

Journals

Download Paper

https://doi.org/10.1088/0957-0233/27/11/115601

Keywords

Additive Manufacturing, Powder Bed Fusion, Selective Laser Melting, Process evaluation, Powder Bed Density, Uncertainty Measurement

Citation

Jacob, G. , Donmez, M. , Moylan, S. and , J. (2016), Measurement of powder bed density in powder bed fusion additive manufacturing processes, Measurement Science and Technology, [online], https://doi.org/10.1088/0957-0233/27/11/115601 (Accessed October 14, 2025)