Database development for additive manufacturing

Additive manufacturing (AM) of metallics is a technology that is poised to revolutionize the way the aerospace industry manufactures propulsion hardware. The additive manufacturing laboratory at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center increasingly uses AM as a manufacturing technique to support development of lower cost propulsion systems. In a typical AM build, witness test coupons are built alongside additively manufactured parts or are excised from the parts themselves to determine the mechanical properties of those parts for use in design. These coupons undergo mechanical testing, resulting in a wealth of data that have yet to be archived or analyzed in a coherent form. The AM community faces many challenges with regard to data management and sharing of data to accelerate materials development and inform material discovery. This paper is a case study of development of an AM database and the analysis of alternatives conducted as part of its formulation. Segregation and organization of existing additive manufacturing data using the NASA-developed materials informatics system MAPTIS (Materials and Processing Technical Information System) is explored. Within the NASA-developed AM database, data can be organized and filtered by material type, AM process, and build parameters as well as in terms of mechanical test data (tensile, fatigue, fracture, surface finish, etc.). This work can serve as a model for how other organizations and research entities might utilize informatics to organize AM data and facilitate comparison of properties across AM builds as well as against conventionally manufactured materials. The archiving of build data in a database format makes it easier to explore interactions and correlations between factors that are of critical interest to the additive manufacturing community. An informatics approach also makes it possible to assess repeatability and scalability of AM processes across vendors and parts. The informatics work in this field strongly complements the development of standards and baseline material properties for additively manufactured materials and a rational path to flight certification for vendors and parts.