Additive manufacturing (AM) has many advantages when compared to traditional subtractive manufacturing processes for the fabrication of low-volume, high-value, complex-shaped parts. Capitalizing on the benefits of AM can allow performance enhancements, weight reduction, cost reduction, and the decrease in the production time of a commodity. However, quality inspection and control issues must be adequately addressed to enable widespread use.
When approaching and developing an inspection procedure or method, manufacturers need to understand that the techniques used are valid, which involves evaluating design discontinuities or flaws. AM can complicate validation due to product geometry, variance in inherent material behavior compared to legacy manufacturing methods, as well as discontinuity distributions. Given that materials made by AM processes can exhibit novel inherent material properties due to these novel processing techniques, the significance of flaw distributions, geometry, and location require substantial investigation to understand if said flaws will exhibit a significant influence on product performance. All of these factors complicate product inspection and certification. Qualification of AM products addresses these concerns, but can be costly as well as commonly results in very product and application specific understanding only. Further opportunity exists to expand the industry’s understanding so lessons learned from one product design may be applied for multiple part ID’s or various applications and operating conditions.