Abstract
Lattice structures have drawn considerable attention due to their superior mechanical properties. However, the existing fabrication methods for lattice structures require complex procedures, as they have low material utilization and lead to unreliable node connections, which greatly restricts their application. In this work, wire arc additive manufacturing is used to fabricate large-scale lattice structures efficiently, without any air holes between rods and panels. The principle and the process of fabricating the rods were analyzed systematically. The influence of the two most important parameters, including heat input and preset layer height, is disclosed. Through optical microscopy, the microstructure of the fabricated steel rods is found to consist of dendritic austenite and skeletal ferrite. The tensile strength of the rods can reach 603 MPa, and their elongation reaches 77%. These experimental results demonstrated the feasibility of fabricating lattice structures using wire arc additive manufacturing.
Highlights
With the rapid development of material processing and machining technologies, large-scale lattice structures had drawn considerable attention in many applications wherein mechanical performance and weight-saving are essential, such as the aerospace, military and construction industries [1,2,3,4,5].According to different requirements, the mechanical and functional properties of lattice structures can be designed through their relative density, core morphology, materials and inclusions [6].till large-scale lattice structures have not been widely used
We further study the tungsten inert gas (TIG) wire arc additive manufacturing (WAAM) and use it to successfully fabricate large-scale pyramidal lattice structures made of 304 L stainless steel
The wire used for the study is 304 L stainless steel of 1.2 mm in diameter, which is a kind of austenitic stainless steel, and Guang et al reported that it performs well in high temperatures with no heat treatment hardening phenomenon [26]
Summary
With the rapid development of material processing and machining technologies, large-scale lattice structures had drawn considerable attention in many applications wherein mechanical performance and weight-saving are essential, such as the aerospace, military and construction industries [1,2,3,4,5]. The traditional fabrication methods of large-scale structures mainly include investment casting, slotted interlocking and punched hole mesh drawing [7]. Due to the various deficiencies of the traditional methods, we urgently need to develop a much leaner and much more efficient method for fabricating large-scale lattice structures and promoting their practical application. The volume of the molten pool in arc additive manufacturing is large, and the existence of disturbance factors, such as cold raw materials and arc force during the forming process, makes the pool an unstable system. These reasons make it difficult for WAAM to produce complex structures, and related research is rare. The preparation, morphology, microstructure and mechanical properties of the fabricated parts were derived as well
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