To accelerate the widespread adoption of additive manufacturing (AM) technology, international standards organizations have started to tackle this issue. Towards this effort the following organizations have begun to release guidelines and standards surrounding qualification and process control:
- ASTM international formed the ASTM F42 Committee for Additive Manufacturing Technologies in 2009 in joint conjunction with ISO/TC 261. To date, nearly 40 standards have been published, and more than 70 standards are under development covering wide range of topics such as general AM, feedstock materials, process, and equipment, finished AM parts and application-specific standards.
- AWS D20.1 standard on “Specification for fabrication of metal components using additive manufacturing” was released in 2019. This is the first standard that provided detailed qualification criteria and risk levels for different AM processes.
- DNVGL ST-203 on “Additive Manufacturing of metallic parts” was released in 2020. This provides standard requirements to follow for production of parts including process and part qualification.
- ASME PTB-13-2021 “Criteria for Pressure-Retaining Components Using Additive Manufacturing” has released a standard in 2021 on use of AM for construction of metallic pressure retaining equipment using powder based additive manufacturing.
- The API 20S Standard for “Additively Manufactured Metallic Components for Use in the Petroleum and Natural Gas Industries” was released in 2021. API 20S standard addresses the fundamental question “is the additive manufacturer qualified to print parts”? The standard uses a tiered approach to process qualification (Additive Manufacturing Specification Levels) to identify different levels of criticality in part qualification.
All the standards AWS D20.1, API 20S, DNVGL ST-B203, and ASME PTB-13-2021 share similar definitions of risk and risk assessment needed to qualify an additively manufactured process and part. This helps in transitioning from one standard to another based on customer requirements with minimal effort on the part of the manufacturer while ensuring consistency and safety on the part of the customer.
Reference: Malkawi, Ameen, Ganti, Satya, Aleid, Zahra, Sharrofna, Hussain, Minhas, Naeem, and Nicholas Barta. “Considerations and challenges of qualifying a metal powder bed fusion 3D printing process.” Paper presented at the Abu Dhabi International Petroleum Exhibition & Conference, Abu Dhabi, UAE, November 2021. doi: https://doi.org/10.2118/207628-MS
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