Detection of Internal Holes in Additive Manufactured Ti-6Al-4V Part Using Laser Ultrasonic Testing

Abstract

For a non-contact, non-destructive quality evaluation, laser ultrasonic testing (LUT) has received increasing attention in complex manufacturing processes, such as additive manufacturing (AM). This work assessed the LUT method for the inspection of internal hole defects in additive manufactured Ti-6Al-4V part. A Q-switched pulsed laser was utilized to generate ultrasound waves on the top surface of a Ti-6Al-4V alloy part, and a laser Doppler vibrometer (LDV) was utilized to detect the ultrasound waves. Sub-millimeter (0.8 mm diameter) internal hole defect was successfully detected by using the established LUT system in pulse-echo mode. The method achieved a relatively high resolution, suggesting significant application prospects in the non-destructive evaluation of AM part. The relationship between the diameter of the hole defects and the amplitude of the laser-generated Rayleigh waves was studied. X-ray computed tomography (XCT) was conducted to validate the results obtained from the LUT system.