System and method for distortion mitigation and compensation in additive manufacturing processes through B-spline hyperpatch field

1. A method comprising:

generating a nominal computer-aided design (CAD) image of a component;

producing a first physical representation of the component from the nominal CAD image using an additive manufacturing (AM) process;

measuring the first physical representation of the physical component to obtain measurement data, wherein the measurement data is point-cloud coordinate data taken from internal and external surfaces of the first physical representation of the component;

determining a deviation between an original three-dimensional geometry associated with the nominal CAD image and the obtained measurement data, wherein the deviation is represented as a set of column vectors;

applying one of a continuous function and a discontinuous function to the set of column vectors to determine a compensation field for the deviation;

modifying the nominal CAD image by the compensation field such that the original three-dimensional geometry associated with the nominal CAD image is modified;

extracting one or more layers from the modified nominal CAD image prior to producing a second physical representation of the component from the modified nominal CAD image; and

producing the second physical representation of the component from the modified nominal CAD image.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

converting the nominal CAD image to a secondary file format prior to producing the physical representation of the component; and

producing the physical representation of the component from the secondary format.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first physical representation of the component is measured by one of a coordinate measuring machine (CMM), an X-ray Computed Tomography system, blue light, ultrasonic testing (UT), and eddy current.

4. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

generating triangular mesh data from the point-cloud coordinate data.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein prior to determining the deviation, the method further comprises:

aligning the obtained measurement data and the geometry associated with the nominal CAD image in a superimposed manner within a point data application.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the compensation field is a three dimensional compensation tensor field.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the continuous function is a B-spline hyperpatch.

8. The method of claim 7 , wherein the B-spline hyperpatch is a trivariate B-spline hyperpatch having three associated independent variables.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein modifying the nominal CAD image by the compensation field further comprises:

moving a point from a first position associated with the nominal CAD image to a second position associated with the compensation field.

10. The method of claim 9 , wherein at least one region of the modified nominal CAD image is one of larger than and smaller than the nominal CAD image.

11. A system comprising:

an additive manufacturing device operative to fabricate a first component;

a geometrical compensation module; and

a memory in communication with the additive manufacturing device and storing program instructions, the geometrical compensation module operative with the program instructions and additive manufacturing device to perform functions as follows:

generate a nominal computer-aided design (CAD) image of a component;

produce a first physical representation of the component from the nominal CAD image using an additive manufacturing (AM) process;

measure the first physical representation of the component to obtain measurement data, wherein the measurement data is point-cloud coordinate data taken from internal and external surfaces of the first physical representation of the component;

determine a deviation between an original three-dimensional geometry associated with the nominal CAD image and the obtained measurement data, wherein the deviation is represented as a set of column vectors;

apply one of a continuous function and a discontinuous function to the set of column vectors to determine a compensation field for the deviation;

modify the nominal CAD image by the compensation field such that the original three-dimensional geometry associated with the nominal CAD image is modified;

extract one or more layers from the modified nominal CAD image prior to producing a second physical representation of the component from the modified nominal CAD image; and

produce the second physical representation of the component from the modified nominal CAD image.

12. The system of claim 11 , wherein the nominal CAD image is converted to a secondary file format prior to producing the physical representation of the component.

13. The system of claim 11 , wherein the first physical representation of the component is measured by one of a coordinate measuring machine (CMM), an X-ray Computed Tomography system, blue light, ultrasonic testing (UT), and eddy current.

14. The system of claim 11 , wherein the continuous function is a B-spline hyperpatch.

15. The system of claim 11 , wherein the geometrical compensation module is further operative to:

determine whether the deviation is outside of a tolerance threshold, and

wherein when the deviation is outside of the tolerance threshold, the geometrical compensation module is operative to modify the nominal CAD image by the compensation field such that the geometry associated with the nominal CAD image is modified globally and produce the physical representation of the component from the modified nominal CAD image.