Industry

1. Introduction

Computed tomography (CT) goes light years beyond regular 2-D X-ray technology to deliver accurate three-dimensional images of scanned objects, including their voids and areas of differing density. It has become one of the most important and powerful non-destructive testing (NDT) methods.

2. Experimental Method

The experiments were performed either with a standard laboratory dual-source micro-CT or with a customized high-power industrial CT. Depending on the material, geometry and wall thickness of the additive manufactured (AM) part we chose the most suitable solution to achieve the best results.

3. Challenges for Additive Manufacturing

Different application examples from different industries will be presented during the presentation to show challenges, problems and typical defects for this production method.

Due to the free part complexity in the AM production process the parts can have a complex outer shape and a lot of internal features like lattice structures or a complex network of channels. This complexity leads to increased demands for the inspection of such parts.

4. CT Metrology

With the right system configuration CT can do highly precise and repeatable measurements for geometrical features.

5. CT as a tool for process optimization

During the presentation different examples how to use an industrial CT scanner as a tool for process optimization for the additive manufacturing production process will be shown.

6. Results

With the presentation of these applications from additive manufacturing and the x-ray and CT inspection it was demonstrated how the performance of a today´s x-ray and CT devices, can support the analysis and inspection tasks for quality assurance, metrology and process optimization for additive manufactured samples through different process steps.