Investigation of the thermal gradients formed during the process of cooling of WAAM built Al99.7 specimen

Abstract

This work presents a preliminary experiment used to determine the possibility of developing a thermal model used to predict the thermal gradients formed during the process of wire and arc additive manufacturing (WAAM). For this purpose, an Al99.7 specimen was built using gas metal arc welding (GMAW) in the cold arc pulse mode. The temperature of both the substrate and each consecutive layer was measured using thermocouples and infrared thermometers and the experimental data was used for the calibration of the developed thermal model. The obtained results can be used for the further development of the thermal model.