An image processing approach to measure features and identify the defects in the laser additive manufactured components

The focus of this research is on the development of image processing techniques that can detect defects in the components manufactured by laser additive manufacturing. There are various factors that result in defects, and they must be identified in order to eliminate them. This paper describes (i) the manufacturing of components using different combinations of process parameters and then capturing its images, (ii) developing an image-processing technique for measuring the dimensions of the features and detecting the surface defects in additively manufactured components. The image processing technique is capable of measuring the geometric features of components with errors ranging from 1.5 % to 3.5 %. The defects identified in the manufactured components namely, void, flash and rough textures are detected and localized using morphological processing techniques. The results reveal that morphological processing techniques are accurate to identify the defects such as voids, flash formation and rough texture in components manufactured by the laser additive manufacturing process.