5507.001 Qualification Requirements for Additive Manufacturing Processes – Phase I, II, III

Problem

Additive manufacturing (AM) processes are targeted as the next high-impact manufacturing process for NAVSEA parts and components, OBJECTIVE Develop, demonstrate, and transition prescriptive prototype qualification and fabrication requirements via the approach of design, build, machine, nondestructive evaluation (NDE), property test, and reporting. The overall goal of the project’s three-year offering the capability to produce parts at low production volumes. Qualification and fabrication requirements must be developed to fully implement this manufacturing process. Some qualifications and requirements have been established through previous project efforts, but NAVSEA has identified additional supporting processes and technology topics that need to be addressed to provide updates to NAVSEA Technical Publications.

Objective

The overall goal of the project’s three-year effort is to develop additional procedure qualification schemes/components, support process requirements, and pertinent fabrication requirements to update NAVSEA Technical Publications for both metal-directed energy deposition (DED) and metal powder bed fusion (PBF) including electron beam powder bed fusion (EB-PBF), electron beam wire fed DED (EB- DED), and laser powder fed DED (PL-DED) thus accelerating implementation of these related technologies. The project also seeks to develop both prescriptive requirements and best practices where possible to improve metal AM process qualification affordability, avoiding the need for “special” procedure qualifications that increase cost and schedule.

Technical Approach

Edison Welding Institute (EWI), the NAVSEA Technical Warrant Holder (TWH) for AM, and the Naval Surface Warfare Center Carderock Division (NSWCCD) have identified a list of supporting processes and technology topics that need to be addressed to complete the development of these NAVSEA Technical Publications.

The initial work establishes the procedure qualification schemes for arc DED processes using integrated and non-integrated build platforms and for both single-sided and double-sided standard quality build (SQB) designs, NDE procedure map, property matrix, and qualification records for each application and process combination. Because these AM processes cover a range of feature size capabilities that are defined by minimum bead width, the SQBs are designed for full scale (≥ 5mm) and subscale features (2-5mm). The previous efforts identified the need to develop mini SQBs for processes with features approximately < 2mm bead width.

Phase I focuses on developing NDE requirements for the SQBs, developing mini SQBs and the test specimen designs to complete EB-PBF build layout, test array, and demonstration builds along with EB-DED and PL-DED procedure qualification scheme and demonstration builds. Phase II advances this a step further into curved integrated builds using pulsed gas metal arc (GMA-P) DED, developed fabrication requirements for DED support processes, identified how materials and build process parameters affect acoustic properties, and recommended in-situ liquid nitrogen cryogenic cooling (ILNCC) procedure requirements for inter-pass temperature control and qualification. Finally, Phase III focuses on validation of NDE flaw detection capabilities.

The results of all tasking support additional input into the development of the PBF and DED Technical Publications that continue to be completed throughout the overall three-year/three-phase project.

Project Participants

Project Principal

Other Project Participants

• NAVSEA/Carderock

Public Participants

• U.S. Department of Defense