Toward Determining Melt Pool Quality Metrics via Coaxial Monitoring in Laser Powder Bed Fusion

Published

February 10, 2018

Author(s)

Brian A. Fisher, Brandon Lane, Ho Yeung, Jack L. Beuth

Abstract

The current industry trend in metal additive manufacturing is toward greater real time process monitoring capabilities during builds to ensure high quality parts. While the hardware implementations that allow for real time monitoring of the melt pool have advanced significantly, the knowledge required to correlate the generated data to useful metrics of interest about the part quality are still lacking. In addition, the data burden generated by the available hardware can be prohibitive if the analysis is not targeted. This research presents promising results that aim to bridge this knowledge gap by presenting a novel means to correlate easily obtainable sensor data (thermal emission) to key melt pool size metrics (e.g., melt pool cross sectional area).

Citation

Manufacturing Letters

Pub Type

Journals

Download Paper

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mfglet.2018.02.009

Local Download

Keywords

additive manufacturing, melt pool monitoring, coaxial monitoring, laser powder bed fusion, NIST Additive Manufacturing Metrology Testbed (AMMT), Ti-6Al-4V

Citation

Fisher, B. , Lane, B. , Yeung, H. and Beuth, J. (2018), Toward Determining Melt Pool Quality Metrics via Coaxial Monitoring in Laser Powder Bed Fusion, Manufacturing Letters, [online], https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mfglet.2018.02.009, https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=924108 (Accessed October 17, 2025)