In situ detection of cracks during laser powder bed fusion using acoustic emission monitoring

•Crack-related AE activity can be registered by a simple threshold approach.•AE signals from cracks differ from the noise by waveform and statistical parameters.•There is a clear relation between cracks directly observed by µ-CT and AE signals.•The time between a layer was built and a crack emergence can take up to an hour.•AE method enables to detect cracks regardless of their spatial or temporal location. Despite rapid development of laser powder bed fusion (L-PBF) and its monitoring techniques, there is still a lack of in situ crack detection methods, among which acoustic emission (AE) is one of the most sensitive. To elaborate on this topic, in situ AE monitoring was applied to L-PBF manufacturing of a high-strength Al92Mn6Ce2 (at. %) alloy and combined with subsequent X-ray computed tomography. By using a structure borne high-frequency sensor, even a simple threshold-based monitoring was able to detect AE activity associated with cracking, which occurred not only during L-PBF itself, but also after the build job was completed, i.e. in the cooling phase. AE data analysis revealed that crack-related signals can easily be separated from the background noise (e.g. inert gas circulation pump) through their specific shape of a waveform, as well as their energy, skewness and kurtosis. Thus, AE was verified to be a promising method for L-PBF monitoring, enabling to detect formation of cracks regardless of their spatial and temporal occurrence.