Abstract
Recent advances in manufacturing technologies have enabled the fabrication of complex geometries for a wide range of applications, including the energy, aerospace, and civil sectors. The ability to integrate sensors at critical locations within these complex components during the manufacturing process could benefit process monitoring and control by reducing reliance on models to relate surface measurements to internal phenomena. This study investigated embedding thermocouples in a SS316 matrix using laser powder bed fusion. Under optimal processing conditions, embedded thermocouples were characterized post-building, finding good bonding to the matrix with no melt pool penetration to the sensing elements. Moreover, the embedded thermocouple performed similarly to an identical non-embedded thermocouple during thermal testing to 500 °C with only a slight difference in response time, which was attributed to the differences in mass and the associated thermal time constants.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 02LT01 |
| Journal | Smart Materials and Structures |
| Volume | 32 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Feb 2023 |
Funding
This work was originally supported by the TCR Program and later supported by the Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies Program of the US Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy. Victoria Cox and Travis Dixon helped with the metallographic preparation. The authors thank Amy Godfrey, Trevor Toll, Jacob Houser, and Alex Hashemian of Analysis and Measurement Services (AMS) Corporation for their helpful thoughts and discussions.
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| Alex Hashemian of Analysis and Measurement Services | |
| U.S. Department of Energy | |
| Office of Nuclear Energy | |
| American Medical Systems |
Keywords
- additive manufacturing
- embedding sensors
- image analysis
- stainless steel
- thermocouples
