Dimensional Analysis and Laser-Ultrasonic Inspection of Cold Spray Additive Manufacturing Components

The use of cold spray (CS) in metal additive manufacturing (AM) offers well recognized advantages with typical commercial drivers being a rapid build rate, low process temperature and wide range of usable alloys. For cold spray, technology-specific considerations must be factored into each of the processing steps and in particular, an effective build strategy and toolpath are critical to moving towards near-net shape parts. Inspection and quality control of such complex parts is a challenge and new strategies have to be developed. For this purpose, this study looks to combine optical techniques for dimensional analysis with laser ultrasonics for volume probing.