Cross Algorithm of Additive Manufacturing Micromixers

Additive manufacturing (AM) that is currently being used to process micromixers has many issues regarding the structural integrity of the micromixers. To solve these issues, in this article, we propose a cross-sectional contour extraction algorithm based on computed tomography (CT) scan data to nondestructively detect the size deviation of micromixers generated by AM. Herein, we take a square wave micromixer and a three-dimensional (3D) circular micromixer as examples to characterize the size deviation. We reconstruct the surface model of the micromixer from CT scan data, which is referred to as the reconstructed model, and extract the central axis of the micromixer reconstructed model. Subsequently, a dividing plane perpendicular to the central axis is established, which is then used to cut the reconstructed model to obtain the cross-sectional contour of the channel. Finally, size inspection is conducted on the extracted cross-sectional contour. The standard deviations of the channel width and height for the square wave micromixer are 0.0271 and 0.0175, respectively, and those for the 3D circular micromixer are 0.0122 and 0.0144, respectively. Through uncertainty analysis, the errors calculated based on the design size are -1.70%, +0.48%, +0.23%, -1.86%, -5.23%, and -0.90%, respectively, which shows that this method can meet the needs of measurement.