NDE of additively manufactured components with embedded defects (reference standards) using conventional and advanced ultrasonic methods

Additive manufacturing provides a unique opportunity to embed defects of known size and shape to produce reference samples for inspection and quality control purposes. This paper reports defect detectability studies with cylindrical additively manufactured cobalt-chromium alloy specimens which contain defects of known sizes and distributions. The specimens were characterized using immersion, synthetic aperture focusing (SAFT), phased array, and nonlinear ultrasonic techniques. Results include detectability, signal to noise ratios, and comparison of results between the methods and what is believed to be the first determination of a non-linearity (beta) parameter for an additively manufactured material. The results indicate that additive manufacturing provides a valuable method to produce reference samples, though additional work is required to validate the shape and morphology of the defects specified.