Abstract
Wire arc additive manufacturing (WAAM) is well suited for the manufacture of sizeable metallic workpieces featuring medium-to-high geometrical complexity due to its high deposition rate, low processing conditions limit, and environmental friendliness. To enhance the current capability of the WAAM process for fabricating structures with complex geometry, this paper proposes a robot-based WAAM strategy adapted specifically for fabricating freeform parts with wire structures composed of multiple struts. Contributions in this work include: (i) The study of bead modelling, which establishes optimal welding parameter selection for the process; (ii) the novel manufacturing strategy, including the adaptive slicing methodology and height control system for accurately depositing every single strut; and (iii) detailed manufacturing procedures for multi-strut branch intersections as well as the collision-free path planning to control the overall fabrication process. To verify the effectiveness of this proposed WAAM approach, two complex wire structures were fabricated successfully, indicating the feasibility of the proposed fabrication strategy.
Highlights
Wire arc additive manufacturing (WAAM) is an emerging directed energy deposition additive manufacturing technology [1] that utilizes electric arc as the power source, which can provide high heat input and deposition rates
WAAM has been integrated with industrial robotic systems or computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) systems, allowing it to perform multi-axis freeform deposition in threedimensional space [7], such as wire structures fabricated in ref [8]
The core contributions of this paper are presented here, which spread over four key areas: the strutbased bead modelling, a height control system, an adaptive slicing methodology, and the tool path planning strategies that combine these techniques to produce an efficient means of fabricating complex wire structures
Summary
Wire arc additive manufacturing (WAAM) is an emerging directed energy deposition additive manufacturing technology [1] that utilizes electric arc as the power source, which can provide high heat input and deposition rates. Wire structures are skeleton-like components composed of many interconnected support struts. This type of structure has been widely employed in polymer AM. The torch direction always remains parallel with the build direction of the strut. A strut with an inclined build direction will feature a certain slope k between the two layers Ln and Ln−1. The geometric data required for these calculations can be readily obtained from CAD data This point defined zones where an adaptive slicing process is required, which is detailed
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