Rapid production of complex part geometries is one of the key advantages of additive manufacturing (AM). However, this rapid production requires equally rapid, accurate qualification to fully realise the manufacturing advantages. Conventionally, this qualification includes characterising tensile properties, where coupons are printed and destructively tested. Such tests require large sample sizes, extensive machining, and may not be representative of the final part. Different regions within the component often exhibit varying material properties due to variation in thermal histories or printing parameters, which are difficult or impossible to detect using a tensile testing approach. This talk will discuss how profilometry-based indentation plastometry (PIP) can be used for mechanical testing to identify part regions with different properties in AlSi10Mg, NASA HR-1 and Maraging M300. PIP uses an indentation-based method combined with iterative FEA to obtain stress-strain curves, including yield stress and UTS, from metallic samples as small as 3 x 3 x 1.5 mm. The talk will extend to include how PIP can also be used to accelerate and improve parameter development by allowing mechanical testing to be brought much earlier into the process, using smaller samples such as density cubes. This gives the user access to more data for identifying optimal parameter sets, ensuring that the best parameters can be determined and the strongest parts printed.

Keywords: mechanical testing; qualification; inhomogeneity