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Minimizing the surface roughness in L-PBF additive manufacturing process using a combined feedforward plus feedback control system

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Abstract

The poor surface quality during the laser powder bed fusion (L-PBF) process adversely impacts the mechanical properties of the final product and even can result in failure of the process. This study aims at minimizing the top surface roughness of the parts manufactured by the L-PBF process by deploying a feedforward plus feedback control system. The most common factors affecting the surface quality, namely, balling, lack of inter-track overlap, overlapping curvature of laser scan tracks, and spatters, were investigated through a monitoring system consisting of a high-speed camera, a zooming lens, and a short-pass filter. The desired melt pool width and the critical value for the level of spatters were determined using the imaging system and subsequent image processing. An experimental model was developed, and the control system was designed accordingly. The performance of the control system was evaluated by simulations and experiments. In all cases, the control system showed an excellent transient performance to reach the desired melt pool width only after printing a few layers. The results obtained from this study showed that the average arithmetic mean surface roughness value (Sa) reduced from 10.48 to 5.91 \({\mu m}\) and from 9.61 to 6.64 \({\mu m}\) at 500 mm/s and 400 mm/s scanning speed, respectively. In addition, evaluating the controller on a bridge geometry showed that controlling the geometry of the melt pool can mitigate significant defects occurring during the process and minimize the top surface roughness.

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Availability of data and material

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Code availability

Codes are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Abbreviations

AM:

Additive manufacturing

CAD:

Computer-aided design

EDM:

Electrical discharge machining

FB:

Feedback

FF:

Feedforward

L-PBF:

Laser powder bed fusion

MPC:

Model predictive control

PD:

Proportional derivative

PID:

Proportional–integral–derivative

PM:

Partially melted

SEM:

Scanning electron microscopy

UM:

Un-melted

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, McMaster University, 1280 Main Street West, Hamilton, ON, L8S 4L7, Canada

    Hossein Rezaeifar & Mohamed Elbestawi

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  1. Hossein Rezaeifar
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  2. Mohamed Elbestawi
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Hossein Rezaeifar, investigation, methodology, conceptualization, and writing—original draft. Mohamed Elbestawi, review and editing and supervision.

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Correspondence to Hossein Rezaeifar.

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Rezaeifar, H., Elbestawi, M. Minimizing the surface roughness in L-PBF additive manufacturing process using a combined feedforward plus feedback control system. Int J Adv Manuf Technol 121, 7811–7831 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00170-022-09902-w

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