Concept Laser Gmbh

General Electric Company

Ge Additive Germany Gmbh

Christian Wacker

Kai Hertel

Florian Bechmann

Subhrajit Roychowdhury

Srinivas Bollapragada

Peter Pontiller-Schymura

David Toledano

Tobias Bokkes

Benedikt Roidl

Juergen Werner

Nitish Umang

Dominic Graf

Johannes Stroessner

Patrick Dueck

Jan Michael Friese

Methods of additively manufacturing a three-dimensional object by one or more energy beams include selectively directing a first energy beam across a powder bed along a plurality of first hatching paths and a first contour path that defines a first outer contour portion and a first stitching portion, wherein the first outer contour portion at least partially defines a first edge portion of an outer edge of the three-dimensional object, and wherein the first edge portion is non-linear, and selectively directing a second energy beam across the powder bed along a plurality of second hatching paths and a second contour path that at least partially defines a second edge portion of the outer edge of the three-dimensional object, wherein the second edge portion is adjacent the first edge portion, and wherein the first stitching portion extends into the plurality of second hatching paths along a non-linear stitching path.

Additive manufacturing methods and systems

A method of additively manufacturing an object may include defining an interlace path for a plurality of energy beams from an energy beam system based at least in part on a route-finding algorithm. The interlace path may delineate a first contour zone of a build plane assigned to a first one of the plurality of energy beams from a second contour zone of the build plane assigned to a second one of the plurality of energy beams. An exemplary method may additionally or alternatively include outputting a control command based at least in part on the interlace path. The control command may be configured to cause the energy beam system to irradiate a layer of a powder bed with the plurality of energy beams.

Methods of determining an interlace path for an additive manufacturing machine

According to some embodiments, system and methods are provided comprising receiving input including: coordinates of one or more regions to be fabricated on a build plate, a laser boundary for each of two or more lasers, wherein the lasers fabricate the one or more regions, and a processing time for each region; deriving a prioritized sequence of the one or more regions to be fabricated; determining, based on the received coordinates and received laser boundary, one or more potential lasers assignments for each region; determining, based on the determined potential laser assignments, the prioritized sequence of the one or more regions, and the processing time for each region, a laser-to-region sequence for the one or more lasers to fabricate the one or more regions; assigning the determined laser-to-region sequence to the one or more lasers for fabrication of the one or more regions. Numerous other aspects are provided.

Optimization approach to load balancing and minimization of build time in additive manufacturing

Growing community of inventors

Bamberg, Germany

Christian Wacker