RX Solutions, based in Annecy, designs X-Ray radioscopy and microtomography systems. X-Ray
microtomography has become, over the years, an indispensable means for
non-invasive, non-destructive characterization of materials in three-dimensions.
Industrial computed tomography, also known as CT scanning, is able to simply
and easily characterize material structure of additive manufacturing components.
Every structural and dimensional aspect of additive manufacturing parts can be
assessed through a single dataset.
Many industries – including automotive,
aeronautic, healthcare or defense – have been experiencing impactful production
and business transformations thanks to additive technologies. For instance,
aircraft parts created with AM help designers to reduce weight and the number
of components in assembly. These parts very often contain internal cavities or
channels that make surface inspection techniques ineffective. This is where
X-ray tomography makes sense: it allows the internal structures to be inspected
with finesse in a non-destructive way keeping in mind that defects such as
porosities or cracking can lead to significant structural integrity issues.
In addition, computed tomography is used at
different scales: It is no longer a question of characterizing only the part
but also the manufacturing process, taking into account the greatest number of AM
parameters with the objective of determining the optimum parameters to produce the
best quality parts: from the powder used as a raw material to the final part.
Powder is the key element for most of the additively
manufactured parts. We know that powders with homogeneous size and shape
distribution will drive to homogeneous melting properties, thus best-quality
parts. At this level, a high spatial resolution is required. The use of
nanotomography (or submicron tomography) allows us to have a resolution of up
to 0.3 microns of voxel size on our devices and gives a way to take a close
look at the powder and inspect in details several parameters (such as their
sphericity, grain size distribution or the presence/absence of internal
porosity).
AM process parameters are constantly
changing as they are many variables in the printers. CT helps to rapidly
optimize the process characteristics and gives a way to rapidly go through the
sample analysis. Hence, many design iterations can be done in a much shorter
time frame.
RX Solutions CT systems are tomographic solutions that can be used for a
variety of 3D applications ranging from research and material sciences to
industrial applications in R&D and production. Scalable CT hardware integrated with full featured “X-Act” software, a proprietary
offering, streamlines acquisition, reconstruction, and is enhanced by advanced
corrective algorithms; capable of automated workflow: scanning, reconstruction,
and inspection