Numerical Studies on Inclusion and Porosity Imaging for Additive Manufacturing using Full Waveform Inversion

Abstract

Undetected inclusions and porosities in the additive manufactured components are undesirable in industries like aerospace engineering. This paper is focused on imaging of micro inclusions and porosities in numerical models based on the properties of an additive manufactured metal using an advanced imaging technique—full-waveform inversion (FWI) as an ultrasonic non-destructive testing (NDT) technique. We developed three models with—single inclusion of 200µm, multiple inclusions of different sizes (30-200µm) and wave speeds, and multiple porosities (30-100µm). The performance of FWI was analyzed for each model. The reconstructed images of all models from the proposed FWI method gave relatively accurate results about the porosities and inclusions, exhibiting the potential of applying FWI in overcoming challenges in NDT for additively manufactured materials.