Additive manufacturing process distortion compensation system

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10525629-B2
Application number	US-201715723986-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Oct 3, 2017
Priority date	Oct 3, 2017
Publication date	Jan 7, 2020
Grant date	Jan 7, 2020

Abstract

An additive manufacturing (AM) system comprising a process distortion compensation computing system configured to determine a digital nominal model that represents a physical target object excluding a distortion, and a digital distortion model that represents the physical target object including at least one distortion. The AM system further comprises an AM peripheral device configured to form a three-dimensional physical object based on a digital compensation model. The process distortion compensation computing system determines a material volume difference between the digital nominal model and the digital distortion model, and generates the digital compensation model that compensates for the material volume difference.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. An additive manufacturing (AM) system comprising:
a process distortion compensation computing system configured to determine a digital nominal model that represents a physical target object excluding a distortion, and a digital distortion model that represents the physical target object including at least one distortion; and
an AM peripheral device configured to form a three-dimensional physical object based on a digital compensation model,
wherein the process distortion compensation computing system determines a material volume difference between the digital nominal model and the digital distortion model, and generates the digital compensation model that compensates for the material volume difference,
wherein the process distortion compensation computing system comprises:
an electronic model reconstruction unit configured to convert the digital nominal model into a nominal three-dimensional (3D) mesh model (C nominal ) and to convert the digital distortion model into a distortion 3D mesh model (C distored ); and
a configuration compensation unit configured to determine the material volume difference based on a comparison between a first total volume of the nominal 3D mesh model and a second total volume of the distortion 3D mesh model.

2. The AM system of claim 1 , wherein the nominal 3D mesh model includes a first mesh grid that defines a plurality of first 3D portions {c i } N i=1 , and wherein the distortion 3D mesh model includes a second mesh grid that defines a plurality of second 3D portions {c′ i }N i=1 .

3. The AM system of claim 2 , wherein the first mesh grid defines a first density of the digital nominal model, and wherein the second mesh grid defines a second density of the digital distortion model.

4. The AM system of claim 2 , wherein the process distortion compensation computing system comprises:
an electronic part alignment unit configured to extract a plurality of first node points from the nominal three-dimensional (3D) mesh model (C nominal ), each first node point indicating a position of a given first 3D portion among the plurality of first 3D portions, and a plurality of second node points from the distortion 3D mesh mode (C distortion ), each second node point indicating a position of a given second 3D portion among the plurality of second of 3D portions; and
a compensation iteration unit configured to determine at least one AM process iteration that compensates for a 3D portion volume differential (Δ 3D ) between at least one given first 3D portion and at least one given second 3D portion.

5. The AM system of claim 4 , wherein the at least one AM process iteration modifies at least one of the volume and shape of the least one given second 3D portion so as to compensate for the 3D portion volume differential (Δ 3D ).

6. The AM system of claim 5 , wherein the first total volume of the nominal 3D mesh model is based on the equation V 0 =Σ i V oi , and the second total volume of the distortion 3D mesh model is based on the equation V c =Σ i V ci .

7. The AM system of claim 5 , wherein the comparison further comprises:
determining a nominal volume of each first 3D portion among the plurality of first 3D portions;
determining a deformation volume of each second 3D portion among the plurality of second 3D portions; and
comparing the calculated deformation volumes to the calculated nominal volumes to determine the material volume difference.

8. The AM system of claim 7 , wherein the comparing further comprises:
comparing the calculated volume of a given first 3D portion indicated by a corresponding first node point to the calculated volume of a given second 3D portion indicated by a corresponding second node point that matches the first node point; and
determining a 3D portion volume differential (Δ 3D ) between the given first 3D portion and the given second 3D portion.

9. The AM system of claim 7 , wherein the calculated volume is based on a correlation of a line/angle deviation between the given first 3D portion and the given second 3D portion.

10. The AM system of claim 9 , wherein the correlation is expressed as:

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Assignees

• Hamilton Sundstrand Corp

Inventors

• Zhang Qingqing
• Chen Yanzhi
• Acharya Ranadip
• El-Wardany Tahany Ibrahim
• Jagdale Vijay Narayan
• Li Changle
• Fennessy Colette Opsahl

Classifications

• B29C64/386 Primary

  Data acquisition or data processing for additive manufacturing · CPC title

• B29C64/141

  using only solid materials · CPC title

• G06T17/205

  Re-meshing · CPC title

• G06T2219/2021

  Shape modification · CPC title

• G06T19/20

  Editing of three-dimensional [3D] images, e.g. changing shapes or colours, aligning objects or positioning parts · CPC title