TransMatch: A Transfer-Learning Framework for Defect Detection in Laser Powder Bed Fusion Additive Manufacturing

Surface defects in Laser Powder Bed Fusion (LPBF) pose significant risks to the structural integrity of additively manufactured components. This paper introduces TransMatch, a novel framework that merges transfer learning and semi-supervised few-shot learning to address the scarcity of labeled AM defect data. By effectively leveraging both labeled and unlabeled novel-class images, TransMatch circumvents the limitations of previous meta-learning approaches. Experimental evaluations on a Surface Defects dataset of 8,284 images demonstrate the efficacy of TransMatch, achieving 98.91% accuracy with minimal loss, alongside high precision, recall, and F1-scores for multiple defect classes. These findings underscore its robustness in accurately identifying diverse defects, such as cracks, pinholes, holes, and spatter. TransMatch thus represents a significant leap forward in additive manufacturing defect detection, offering a practical and scalable solution for quality assurance and reliability across a wide range of industrial applications.