Metal Additive Manufacturing Conference - MAMC 2022

Current Qualification and Certification methods of Additive Manufactured aviation products are based on Point Design (or Qualification) approaches. Multiple destructive testing routines are performed per part number to qualify the manufacturing process.
Considering the large sources of variability affecting part quality in Additive Manufacturing (AM) processes, and the rapid innovations of dedicated equipment and materials released on the market each year, part and process qualification is generally heavier in time and costs compared to traditionally manufactured products.
A recognized evolution of Qualification and Certification (Q&C) methods, is based on the approach of Part Family as an intermediate step toward the Process based Qualification.
The basis of this approach consists in sharing engineering data across multiple part numbers to reduce repeated and extensive qualification operations when parts design, application requirements and their production processes present commonalities.
As result, this logic could lead to substantial costs and lead time benefits for both internal parts production and external procurement, allowing qualification to cover a range of similar parts instead of qualifying one part number at a time.
The paper, presents a consensus based guideline to implement a Part Family approach to qualify and certify additive manufactured products for the aviation industry, providing best practices to define parts and process similarities in terms of material data, geometry, manufacturing and inspection requirements.
The outcome of this work sets the basis for standardization of the Part Family Q&C approach within the ASTM F42.05 committee.