An electron beam melting system for in-situ synchrotron X-ray monitoring
Luis I. Escano, Samuel J. Clark, Andrew Chihpin Chuang, Jiandong Yuan, Qilin Guo, Minglei Qu, William Dong, Xinhang Zhang, Junye Huang, Kamel Fezzaa, Péter Kenesei, Brandon J. Walker, Tao Sun, Kevin W. Eliceiri, Lianyi Chen
Abstract
Electron beam melting (EBM) additive manufacturing (AM) has grown rapidly in recent years due to its capability to manufacture high-performance metals and conductive ceramics. Whereas in-situ synchrotron X-ray imaging and diffraction have proven invaluable tools in understanding of laser powder bed fusion (L-PBF), the characterization of the EBM process lagged what has been accomplished in laser-based AM. This is principally due to the lack of an open architecture system. Here we report an open architecture EBM system for in-situ synchrotron X-ray monitoring with complementary high-speed visible light imaging and high-speed infrared (IR) imaging. We demonstrate that the developed system enables the characterization of sub-surface transient phenomena. The open architecture system reported here provides a powerful tool for studying the dynamics and mechanisms of EBM AM process. The promising results reported here may ignite more future research activities on using in-situ synchrotron x-ray techniques to study EBM AM processes.