Qualification of Metal 3D Printed Parts for Production Use

Abstract

As more organizations incorporate additive manufacturing systems to produce production parts, it is becoming clear that successfully moving beyond prototyping requires a more advanced and thoughtful qualification strategy. To achieve the desired outcomes, organizations in the oil and gas sector now need to learn how to build a methodical and scalable system for measuring and characterizing materials, processes, and parts. This paper will discuss an approach to solving this problem within the context of 3D Printing using metal powder. For both new and experienced users of this technology there needs to be a recognition that the workflow prior to and after printing are just as critical in producing repeatable parts as the machine operation itself. Additionally, the relatively small sample size of machine to machine comparison in the oil and gas sector raises questions about the best strategy to use when builing a supply chain to support productionazition of 3D Printed components. This paper addresses this challenge by showcasing new software tools to manage the data generated within sensors on production scale 3D Printers that can then be connected directly to the materials and post processing workflows to provide users with actionable data to manage and troubleshoot their production process with efficiency.