Aaron T. Nardi

Real Time NDE of Cold Spray Processing Using Acoustic Emission

As interest continues to grow in Additive Manufacturing (AM) processes, the inspection challenges that arise in this class of material need to be addressed. This must be balanced by considering cost and finding defects as soon as feasible in the process to minimize downstream production impacts. As a means to consider defect detection as early as possible, acoustic emission (AE) was used to monitor the cold spray powder deposition process. The concept was to observe the article being coated for the acoustic signature of internal cracking or interface delamination, resulting in a quick and cost-effective means to detect problems during cold spray parameter development and ultimately during production. Real time monitoring was used to delineate between particle impacts and more significant events such as delamination and internal cracking. The results of this study show that AE can be used to monitor processes in extremely noisy environments. Opportunities for extension to other additive manufacturing processes will be discussed.