A Study on Power-Controlled Wire-Arc Additive Manufacturing using a Data-driven Surrogate Model

Abstract

Wire-Arc Additive Manufacturing (WAAM) provides an alternative for the production of various metal products needed in medium to large batch sizes due to its high deposition rates. However, the cyclic heat input in WAAM may cause local overheating. To avoid adverse effects on the performance of the part, interlayer dwelling and active cooling are used, but these measures increase the process time. Alternatively, the temperature during the WAAM process could be controlled by optimizing the welding power. The present work aims at introducing and implementing a novel temperature management approach by adjusting the weld-bead cross-section along with the welding power to reduce the heat accumulation in the WAAM process. The temperature evolution during welding of weld beads of different cross-sections is investigated and a database of the relation between optimal welding power for beads of various sizes and different pre-heating temperatures was established. The numerical results are validated experimentally with a block-shaped geometry. The results show that by the proposed method, the test shape made was welded with lower energy consumption and process time as compared to conventional constant-power WAAM. The proposed approach efficiently manages the thermal input and reduces the need for pausing the process. Hence, the defects related to heat accumulation might be reduced, and the process efficiency increased.

Simulation of Wire Arc Additive Manufacturing in the Reinforcement of a Half-Cylinder Shell Geometry

“…In the case of welding, it was demonstrated that the welding sequence of multi-weld bead parts affects the shape and the magnitude of the distortion [7,8]. Similarly, it was shown that part distortion varies significantly in WAAM depending on the deposition pattern, as observed both in experiments [9] and simulations [10][11][12]. Additionally, it was found that the part geometry has a significant impact on the resulting residual stresses and distortions [13].…”

Process Optimization and Distortion Prediction in Directed Energy Deposition

“…Generally, the sum of the heat fraction, f, between the heat deposited in the front, af, and the rear, ar, regions is equal to two [24]. The model parameters are gathered in Table 1.…”

Experimental and simulative investigation of welding sequences on thermally induced distortions in wire arc additive manufacturing

“…The majority of simulation studies were conducted on single-seam wall geometries with a focus on heat source design (Montevecchi et al , 2016; Peyre et al , 2008) and model validation (Peyre et al , 2008; Oyama et al , 2019; Graf et al , 2018 ; Ding et al , 2011). Investigations on more complex and voluminous parts, in which the influence of the welding sequence is more pronounced, were conducted by Israr et al (2018) in a purely simulative comparison study and by Baehr et al (2021) using a temperature-based optimization approach.…”