Automated laser polishing for surface finish enhancement of additive manufactured components for the automotive industry

Abstract

Additive manufactured components require polishing to improve their inherently rough surface finish. In this work, an innovative laser polishing process based on wobbling of the laser beam is proposed for surface finish enhancement of additive manufactured parts made of Cr–Cu precipitation hardening steel, widely employed for mechanical components in the automotive industry. Parts were fabricated by selective laser melting and subjected to the innovative laser polishing under different process conditions. Surface characterization was performed by microstructural analysis and surface roughness measurement. Machine learning-based CNN processing of polished surface images was employed for automatic identification of optimal LP condition.