Design study for wire and arc additive manufacture

Abstract

Additive Manufacture (AM) is a technique whereby freeform structures are produced by building up material in a layer by layer fashion. Among the different AM processes, Wire and Arc Additive Manufacture (WAAM) has the ability to manufacture large custom-made metal workpiece with high efficiency. A design study has been performed to explore the process capabilities of fabricating complicated geometries using WAAM. Features such as enclosed structures, crossing structures, and balanced building structures have been investigated in this study. Finite Element (FE) models are employed to take the thermo-mechanical performance into account. Robot tool path design has been performed to transfer the WAAM component designs into real components efficiently. This paper covers these essential design steps from a technical as well as practical point of view.Keywords: additive manufacture, wire and arc additive manufacture, design for manufacture, FE simulation.Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Mehnen, J., Ding, J., Lockett, H. and Kazanas, P. (XXXX) Design study for wire and arc additive manufacture , Int. J. Product Development, Vol. X, No. Y, pp.xxx xxx. Helen Lockett is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Engineering at Cranfield University. Her research interests are in engineering design and computer aided design, particularly focused on the development of techniques to support design for manufacture/ maintainability. In her PhD research she developed a knowledge based manufacturing advisor for moulded parts. More recently she has investigated the design opportunities for additive manufacture, particularly for aerospace applications. She has also undertaken research in design for maintainability and the extended lifecycle, utilising information collected from products in-use. J. Mehnen et al.Panos Kazanas obtained his Mechanical Engineering in 1993 in Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. He obtained his MSc in CAD/CAM from Cranfield University in 1995 and worked in the oil & gas industry for 11 years. He returned to Cranfield to obtain an MSc in Welding Engineering. He is currently a PhD student in the AVD Department of Cranfield University. His research interests include Design for Additive Manufacturing (AM) process with weld metal deposition and FEA analysis of AM proposed designs.

Design for Additive Manufacturing: Trends, opportunities, considerations, and constraints

“…Additional process-specific design rules have been proposed for FDM [322], SLM [325], EBM [336] and WAAM [220][221] [222].…”

CMT Additive Manufacturing of a High Strength Steel Alloy for Application in Crane Construction

“…Crossings entail the problem of material accumulation at the crossing point. The usage of Lshaped welds to build a crossing from opposing angles is evaluated by Mehnen et al [19]; strategies for T-shaped crossings are discussed by Venturini et al [20]. The arrangement of the individual tracks shown for each layer was chosen to improve uniform height development along the transverse direction of the start and end sections.…”

“…Crossings entail the problem of material accumulation at the crossing point. The usage of L-shaped welds to build a crossing from opposing angles is evaluated by Mehnen et al [19]; strategies for T-shaped crossings are discussed by Venturini et al [20].…”

Design for Wire + Arc Additive Manufacture: design rules and build orientation selection

“…There is a need to better understand the similarities and differences between WAAM and other AM technologies. The only previously published WAAM design guidelines were produced by Kazanas et al (2012) who published an initial an investigation into geometric feature deposition using WAAM, and Mehnen et al (2011Mehnen et al ( , 2014 who published a design study for WAAM containing some examples of design features and process capabilities; but there are no published methodological approaches to designing for WAAM.…”