21st Century NDE Revealing Moments … The Stakes Are High

Inadequate inspection capabilities of Non Destructive Evaluation (NDE) have been quite revealing lately when used for the real-time monitoring of the Next-Gen Additive Manufacturing (AM), known as Smart Manufacturing (SM). SM is the convergence of Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) (and /or Industry 4.0) with AM. The inspection limitations make the real-time analysis of SM elusive, at times impossible when studying machine-health conditions, process control, local and global materials state; all needed for detecting an off-nominal AM build state. These disadvantages exist today because NDE has failed to keep pace with the technological advances in manufacturing. For NDE to stay relevant, it should keep pace with the technologies, such as digital transformation, Digital Twin (DT), simulation, and generative design to solve business inspection needs. So, there is a need for robust real-time monitoring to ensure quality in 3D printed parts with increased scale and complexity in industrial sustainability.