Case Study: Additive Manufacturing achieves faster qualification and reduced NDT costs with Materialise

Materialise Software and GE Sensing Technology Push the Qualification of AM

Additive Manufacturing faced a common barrier to scaling 3D printing: qualifying complex metal parts quickly and cost‑effectively while keeping Non‑Destructive Testing (NDT) costs low and ensuring process consistency and repeatability. Materialise was brought in to address these issues with its AM software platform, using tools such as Materialise Inspector and the Control Platform alongside CT scanning data from GE Sensing to better understand and predict process behavior.

Materialise combined AM process simulation and in‑process inspection with high‑accuracy CT scans to predict defects, define regions of interest, and provide online error detection—identifying a visible stress line in simulation and a subtle deviation caused by a paused build. As a result, lead time for the project fell from 9 to 6 weeks and NDT-related costs dropped by several thousand euros, while Materialise’s approach enabled faster root‑cause analysis and more cost‑effective qualification for future serial manufacturing.

Additive Manufacturing

Rein van der Mast

Industrial Design Engineer