Power–Velocity Process Design Charts for Powder Bed Additive Manufacturing

A current issue in metal-based additive manufacturing (AM) is achieving consistent, desired process outcomes in manufactured parts. When process outcomes such as strength, density, or precision need to meet certain specifications, changes in process variable selection can be made to meet these requirements. However, the changes required to achieve a better part performance may not be intuitive, particularly because process variable changes can simultaneously improve some outcomes while worsening others. There is great potential to design the additive manufacturing process, tailoring process variables based on user requirements for a given part. In this work, the tradeoffs between multiple process outcomes are formalized and the design problem is explored throughout the design space of process variables. Based on user input for each process outcome considered, P–V (power–velocity) process design charts are introduced, which map the process space and identify the best combination of process variables to achieve a user's desired outcome.