In-situ detection of redeposited spatter and its influence on the formation of internal flaws in laser powder bed fusion

The pervasive adoption of laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) as an industrial manufacturing technique relies on the improvement of its repeatability, currently limited by the stochastic formation of flaws. Considering that large flaws can form randomly and despite the optimization of process parameters, an in-situ monitoring technique suitable for detecting deviations that originate these critical flaws is paramount. The redeposition of spatters on the build area has previously been identified as one of the factors responsible for the rise of internal flaws, but so far limited are the efforts towards their detection. This study aims to detect spatter redeposits via in-situ monitoring and to couple the detections to lack of fusion. For that, long-exposure near-infrared in-situ monitoring associated with image analysis is employed to determine the exact locations and quantify the incidence of spatter redeposits across three full builds performed at varying layer thicknesses. The existence and distribution of internal flaws is verified ex-situ by means of ultrasonic inspection and metallography. The formation of internal flaws is attributed to spatter redeposits after detailed characterization of size, particle and surface morphology of spatter and identification of particles with identical characteristics on the fracture surface in the adjacencies of lack of fusion. It is found that spatters preferentially redeposit on the adjacencies of the gas outlet, but that the affected portion of the build area and the prevalence of detections is heavily dependent on the powder layer thickness employed in the manufacturing process. The monitoring system setup preferentially acquires signal from spatters redeposited on print regions, making it particularly suitable for flaw detection.