Finite Element Modeling and Validation of Metal Deposition in Wire Arc Additive Manufacturing

Abstract

Wire arc additive manufacturing allows the production of metallic parts by depositing beads of weld metal using arc-welding technologies. This low-cost additive manufacturing technology has the ability to manufacture large-scale parts at a high deposition rate. However, the quality of the obtained parts is greatly affected by the various thermal phenomena present during the manufacturing process. Numerical simulation remains an effective tool for studying such phenomena. In this work, a new finite element technique is proposed in order to model metal deposition in WAAM process. This technique allows to gradually construct the mesh representing the deposited regions along the deposition path. The heat source model proposed by Goldak is adapted and combined with the proposed metal deposition technique taking into account the energy distribution between filler material and the molten pool. The effectiveness of the proposed method is validated by series of experiments, of which an example is detailed in this paper.

B-Spline Based Metamodel of the Thermal Analysis of the Wire Arc Additive Manufacturing Process

“…The most used one is the cold metal transfer (CMT) that is an improved version of the classical Gas Metal and Tungsten Arc Welding (GMAW/GTMAW) (Rodrigues et al, 2019). In CMT, the droplet deposition is automatically controlled assuring lower heat input of the base material and more stable molten material deposition (Chergui, 2021). However, the final properties of the part are mostly influenced by the deposition parameters and strategy, inter-layer temperature, the high heat inputs, and consequent cooling rates that typically result in residual stresses and deformations.…”

“…As the process parameters vary, there is a modification in the bead behaviour with a consequent change in its temperature history (Chergui, 2021).…”

“…Indeed, such technologies provide environmentally sympathetic manufacturing benefits such as the possibility of manufacturing parts with complex geometries and a significant reduction of material waste (Montevecchi et al, 2016). Among metal AM processes, wire arc additive manufacturing (WAAM) is one of the most promising technologies in terms of deposition rate (Ding et al, 2015) and allows producing large near-shape metal parts with complex geometry by deposing weld beads with a layer-bylayer strategy (Chergui, 2021). Despite these advantages, the quality of parts manufactured by WAAM is highly affected by the thermal and mechanical phenomena occurring during the process, which are influenced by its main parameters.…”

Benchmarking study between Lagamine and Comsol Solvers for Finite Element Thermal Analyses of Directed Energy Deposition Process

“…So far, numerical simulations for AM processes, especially for DED, were conducted using either commercial FEM software, e.g., ANSYS (Tan et al, 2020), COMSOL Multiphysics® (Nie et al, 2021), and Abaqus (Kiran et al, 2020), or open-source/inhouse developed codes, e.g., Cast3M (Chergui 2021), Lagamine (Jardin et al, 2020;Tran et al, 2017), SIERRA (Stender et al, 2018). The usefulness of the former software group is well-established in the literature.…”

A metamodel based on basis spline hyper-surfaces for thermal simulation of the wire arc additive manufacturing process

“…In order to reduce material waste and thereby reduce the BTF ratio, Additive Manufacturing (AM) technology is an environmentally friendly manufacturing alternative to conventional manufacturing processes. Among metal AM processes, wire arc additive manufacturing (WAAM) is one of the most promising technologies in terms of deposition rate [2] allowing the production of large near net-shape metal parts with complex geometry by depositing weld beads in a layer-by-layer strategy [3]. Despite these advantages, the quality of parts manufactured by WAAM is highly affected by the thermal and mechanical phenomena occurring during the process, which are influenced by its main parameters.…”