The aim of the SeLEC project is the production, testing and evaluation of various metallic propulsion components produced by Selective Laser Melting (SLM). An injector, a combustion chamber and an impeller are adapted to the SLM production chain and the materials that are used with it.
Local temperature differences during the 3D-printing process result in high residual stresses during cooling. This can ultimately lead to a failure of the component. The Melt Pool Monitoring (MPM) tool records the resulting heat radiation from the melt in real time using photodiodes. The measurements take place in a measuring cycle of up to 10 µs, so that even small components can produce very large amounts of data during printing.
The Institute for Software Technology supports the project through the development of dedicated software. The MPM measurements are evaluated to investigate the influence of the process parameters on local temperature differences. Automated geometric decomposition of complex shapes before printing enables localized adjustment of the printing parameters, so that a uniform temperature distribution can be ensured.