Thermal monitoring for Metallic Additive Manufacturing multi-beads multi-layers parts

Among Metallic Additive Manufacturing processes, Directed Energy Deposition (DED) processes are very promising for the Industry. An issue that prevents a larger development of DED is the reliability of the process, since its complexity makes the result of the manufacturing variable. Thermal behavior is a critical aspect for which uncontrolled phenomena can lead to part failure. Some thermal monitoring and closed-loop control methods have been developed, that enables to observe and regulate the heating of the processed part. However, these methods rely on local measures from a region or a single external surface of a part, and thus provide partial information of thermal fields in the whole part volume. This paper proposes a method that combines diverse data to compute online a process indicator that is meaningful for the thermal state of the whole part, and hence for the control of the manufacturing of multi-beads multi-layer parts. A simulation-based model using thermal partial data is proposed. An online monitoring experiment is proposed for validation of the model. Relevance of the control method to ensure mechanical properties of the part is then tested.