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A stable welding process is crucial to obtain high quality parts in wire arc additive manufacturing. The complexity of the process makes it inherently unstable, which can cause various defects, resulting in poor geometric accuracy and material properties. This demands for in-process monitoring and control mechanisms to industrialize the technology. In this work, process monitoring algorithms based on welding camera image analysis are presented. A neural network for semantic segmentation of the welding wire is used to monitor the working distance as well as the horizontal position of the wire during welding and classic image processing techniques are applied to capture spatter formation. Using these algorithms, the process stability is evaluated in real time and the analysis results enable the direction independent closed-loop-control of the manufacturing process. This significantly improves geometric fidelity as well as mechanical properties of the fabricated part and allows the automated production of parts with complex deposition paths including weld bead crossings, curvatures and overhang structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modern radial head prostheses have recently become more common in the treatment of comminuted radial head fractures. The goal of this study was to evaluate how well the EVOLVE® modular metallic radial head implant prosthetic restores the functional range of motion and stability of the elbow. 30 patients with comminuted radial head fractures received an arthroplasty with an EVOLVE® prosthesis in our institution. 20 of those patients were available for long-term follow-up (mean > 10 years). The outcomes were assessed on the basis of pain, motion, and strength. The overall outcome was scored with functional rating scores. According to the Broberg–Morrey elbow evaluation score, after a mean follow-up period of 10.2 years, ten (50.0%) patients were rated as very good, four (20.0%) as good, six (30.0%) as satisfactory, and none as poor. In the long-term results the Broberg–Morrey score increased from 79 (in short-term results) to 89 points. The Disabilities of the Arm, Shoulder, and Hand (DASH) outcome measure questionnaire showed an average of 16.2 points. Initially, patients had an extension deficit of 20°, which was reduced to 5° at the latest follow-up. In our long-term results, an improvement in the function of the elbow was observed after arthroplasty using a metallic modular radial head implant. Comminuted radial head fractures with elbow instability can be treated effectively with the EVOLVE® radial head prosthesis, which restores stability in acute treatment. Our long-term results after 10.2 years demonstrate good functional outcome and low major complication rate. IV. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wire Arc Additive Manufacturing allows the cost-effective manufacturing of customized, large-scale metal parts. As the post-process quality assurance of large parts is costly and time-consuming, process monitoring is inevitable. In the present study, a context-aware monitoring solution was investigated by integrating machine, temporal, and spatial context in the data analysis. By analyzing the voltage patterns of each cycle in the oscillating cold metal transfer process with a deep neural network, temporal context was included. Spatial context awareness was enabled by building a digital twin of the manufactured part using an Octree as spatial indexing data structure. By means of the spatial context awareness, two quality metrics—the defect expansion and the local anomaly density—were introduced. The defect expansion was tracked in-process by assigning detected defects to the same defect cluster in case of spatial correlation. The local anomaly density was derived by defining a spherical region of interest which enabled the detection of aggregations of anomalies. By means of the context aware monitoring system, defects were detected in-process with a higher sensitivity as common defect detectors for welding applications, showing less false-positives and false-negatives. A quantitative evaluation of defect expansion and densities of various defect types such as pore nests was enabled. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Acoustic emissions in directed energy deposition processes such as wire arc additive manufacturing and directed energy deposition with laser beam/metal are investigated within this work, as many insights about the process can be gained from this. In both processes, experienced operators can hear whether a process is running stable or not. Therefore, different experiments for stable and unstable processes with common process anomalies were carried out, and the acoustic emissions as well as process camera images were captured. Thereby, it was found that stable processes show a consistent mean intensity in the acoustic emissions for both processes. For wire arc additive manufacturing, it was found that by the Mel spectrum, a specific spectrum adapted to human hearing, the occurrence of different process anomalies can be detected. The main acoustic source in wire arc additive manufacturing is the plasma expansion of the arc. The acoustic emissions and the occurring process anomalies are mainly correlating with the size of the arc because that is essentially the ionized volume leading to the air pressure which causes the acoustic emissions. For directed energy deposition with laser beam/metal, it was found that by the Mel spectrum, the occurrence of an unstable process can also be detected. The main acoustic emissions are created by the interaction between the powder and the laser beam because the powder particles create an air pressure through the expansion of the particles from the solid state to the liquid state when these particles are melted. These findings can be used to achieve an in situ quality assurance by an in-process analysis of the acoustic emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]