Adaptive Laser Beam for additive manufacturing

The ALABAMA project aims to develop and mature adaptive laser technologies for AM. The objective is to lower decrease the porosity and to tailor the microstructure of the deposited material by shaping the laser beam, both temporally and spatially, during the AM process. The key innovations in the project are to develop multiscale physics-based models to enable optimization of the AM process. These process parameters will be tested and matured for multi-beam control, laser beam shaping optics and high-speed scanning. To ensure the quality of the process, advanced online process monitoring and closed loop control will be performed using multi spectral imaging and thermography to control the melt pool behavior coupled with wire-current and high-speed imaging to control the process. To verify that the built material fulfills the requirements, advanced characterization will be conducted on coupons and on use-cases. The matured technology will be tested on three use-cases; aviation, maritime and automotive. These three industrial sectors span a broad part of the manufacturing volumes: from low numbers with high added value, to high numbers with relatively low cost. However, all these sectors struggle with distortions, stresses and material quality. The ALABAMA use-case demonstrators will improve the compensation for distortions during the AM process, reduce the build failures due to residual stresses, reduce porosity and improve tailoring of the microstructure. Overall, this will contribute to up to 100% increase in process productivity, 50% less defects, 33% cost reduction due to increased productivity and energy savings, a reduction of 15% in greenhouse gases and enable first time-right manufacturing thanks to simulation, process monitoring and adaptive control. The end users will insert the technologies while the sub-technologies developed in the work packages will be commercialized. This will increase the autonomy for a resilient European industry.