In-situ optical sensor integration in an open source L-PBF system, for correlating laser power to melt pool radiation

Selective laser sintering (SLS) is a promising additive manufacturing process, within the regime of modern fabrication techniques. It has drawn more attention from the scientific communities and indsutries over the recent years, due to recent technological improvements for rapid prototyping and procution. Althouth SLS is not yet a reliable process for thermoplastics, because of limitation in quality of the resultant parts, compared to the calissical processes such as injection moulding. [1] In order for SLS to become more reliable, a better understanding of the physical phenomenan, is a necesissity for obtaining better control of the process and resultant output quality. A promising method for achiving this goal, is to acquire better control and regulation of the laser power, by the means of in-situ sensor integration, that allows a correlation between the radiation of the melt pool, and the output power of the laser. The current work derives a methodlogy for integrating an in-situ infarred camera and photodiode in an open source SLS system, with the objective of logging the melt pool radiation intensity, in both the vissible and infarred wavelengths regimes. This will allow regulation of the laser in overheating zones and reduce the formation of dendrils in curvature and overhang structures, which will result in an overall better part quality and understandment of the process itself. The work therefore aims at deriving a statiscal model for regulating the laser power, based on the intensity measurements of the melt pool, and the generation of heatmaps.