News that a new technique which could speed up the metal additive manufacturing process, which is a part of the aerospace industry has been announced. This new technique is expected to boost efficiency in the metal additive sector of aerospace manufacturing and could also lead to a reduction in waste as the new process will allow for the components to be inspected throughout the build process.

The newly developed process uses laser ultrasound in order to flag up any defects during the manufacturing process. This monitoring technique has been developed by Dr. Ben Dutton who works at the Manufacturing Technology Centre which is located in Coventry. It is thought that the benefits of Dr. Dutton’s new technique could lead additive manufacturing being adopted across more manufacturing areas such as mass manufacturing. The removal of an inspection process will allow additive manufacturing to be carried out with more efficiency as well as slashing the amount of waste involved with this process.

The new technique has been developed in response to the need for better testing to suit the increased use of additive manufacturing in different industries such as automotive and aerospace. Dr. Ben Dutton’s work was revealed at the NDT 2017 conference which took place on the 6th of September in Telford.

This technology could lead to significant improvements across the aerospace and automotive industries as well as opening new doors for additive processes across all manufacturing operations. Inspection during the build process means that any imperfections or defects found during the manufacturing process can lead to the process stopped and the defect component being removed, saving the time it would take to completely manufacture a component, notice a fault and waste the product, as well as cutting down on the materials used throughout this process and the costs associated with them.