Mr
John Power
Postgraduate Researcher
John Power is PhD researcher in I-Form, based in UCD, working in the area of ‘In-Situ Process Monitoring of Additive Manufacturing’. He obtained his undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering from Trinity College Dublin in 2020 before completing a Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering, also in Trinity College Dublin. His main research focus is in the area of metal additive manufacturing, in-process monitoring and it’s use in fault detection/part characterisation.
Research Interests (Lay Summary)
John started his PhD in 2021 and is investigating the effect of different input parameters of the metal additive manufacturing (laser-based powder bed fusion in this instance) process on part quality. Most of his research is being conducted on titanium alloy parts. Titanium and its various alloys are widely used in the biomedical industry in Ireland (e.g., in hip implants).
In researching the impact that different process parameters (such as powder size, laser intensity, etc) have on the end product, and by using an in-situ process monitoring system, the goal is to predict part quality as the build process is ongoing. This will allow manufacturers to correct a faulty process during the build or stop a build that is producing defective parts early, reducing cost and time wasted with post process inspection of these parts. This improvement will reduce both the time and material needed to produce additive manufactured parts.
Technical Summary
The aim of this research is gain a better understanding of how different process parameters affect the properties (e.g. part porosity) of parts produce using additive manufacturing methods. The work will use in-situ process monitoring to gather data from the print parts as they are being printed. Process monitoring is essential to improving the quality of AM produced parts in industry. The work here aims to improve the overall understanding of how process monitoring systems work and how they can be used to enhance the quality assurance of the parts produced using metal additive manufacturing.