Patent ID: 8452073

Claim:
A closed-loop control method for an electron beam freeform fabrication (EBF 3 ) process wherein, using an EBF 3 apparatus, a wire is fed via a wire feeder, melted, and progressively deposited as a molten pool, the molten pool being cooled in layers on a substrate, the method comprising: melting the wire via an electron beam within a vacuum chamber to thereby form the molten pool on the substrate; detecting a feature of interest of the molten pool during the EBF 3 process using at least one sensor, wherein the feature of interest includes at least one of a height of the molten pool, a distance between the molten pool and the wire feeder, and a temperature of the layers; continuously evaluating the feature of interest to determine, in real time, a change occurring therein; and using a host machine to automatically modify, in a closed-loop manner, a set of control parameters of a master process controller used to control an operation of the EBF 3 apparatus.