Metal Additive Manufacturing Conference 2018

For additive manufacturing by direct laser melting route, proper application of the powder layers is of crucial importance. Therefore, important aspects are the typical powder characteristics such as flowability but also the nature of the top layer itself. In order to easily rate the morphology of the top layer a new method has been developed for which a self-made tester for the layer building process has been built. For the observation of the surface of the top layer a digital microscope with a large depth-of-field has been used. The height data of these three-dimensional images has then been extracted and analyzed by a self-written python program which searches for the extrema of the surface in two directions – horizontal and vertical – and calculates specific parameters out of this data. Specific orientation of the surface can be seen as well as the flatness of the surface can be rated.