Evaluating the energy properties of the short-flow process based on the industrial metabolism: A case study on the metal 3D printing of hybrid deposition and micro rolling (HDMR)

Abstract

The hybrid deposition and micro rolling (HDMR) is a new ultra-short process additive manufacturing (AM) technology, which combines in-situ rolling with additive manufacturing to greatly shorten and integrate the processing flow. In order to well understand the energy properties of the new technology, an industrial metabolic (IM) model is proposed with the complex processing parameters and equipment properties. The experimental test verifies that the deviation of specific energy consumption (SEC) computed by the IM model is 4.43% in the short-flow process of HDMR. Further study compares the energy properties of HDMR process with the conventional manufacturing (CM) processes by taking a cross-shaping part made of Ti-6Al-4V as an example. The results using the IM model show that the energy consumption of HDMR is reduced by 46.83% comparing with CM, by shortening the processing flow greatly. The short flow process of HDMR extremely reduces the melting heat and deformation energy in the deposition and rolling processes, compared with the significant energy consumption in the conventional processes of casting and forging. Meanwhile, the specific energy loss (SEL, energy loss per kilogram of materials) in HDMR is approximately 2 times lower than that of CM, which implies that HDMR has obvious advantages in the energy utilization with a shorter processing cycle. The study implies that industrial metabolism of the short-flow process like HDMR is more effective and appropriate to processing the titanium alloy with higher efficiency.