Toward Sub-Surface Pore Prediction Capabilities for Laser Powder Bed Fusion Using Data Science

Achieving defect-free parts is traditionally challenging in laser powder bed fusion (LPBF). The mechanical properties of additively manufactured parts are highly affected by their density; as such, research in defect detection and pore prediction has gained significant interest. The process parameters, the powder characteristics, and the process environment conditions play an important role in defect occurrence. Moreover, the laser scan path affects density, especially at scan path discontinuities. In this work, the complex interaction between the process parameters and the scan path on the occurrence of subsurface pores is investigated. In the data preparation step, a synthetic data set is generated to model the melt pool morphology along the scan path. A secondary data set containing the pore space of the resulting parts is obtained via X-ray computed tomography (CT) and is registered with the synthetic data set. Machine learning models, namely, a Conditional Variational AutoEncoder (CVAE) and a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN), are then trained based on the input features to predict pore occurrence. The performance evaluation of both CNN and CVAE models on synthetic data indicates that the scan path and process parameters can be utilized in predicting pore locations. Quantitative results show that employing offline CT images a priori in training the CVAE, without the need to have CT information in the test phase, leads the CVAE model to superior performance over the CNN.