Modelling of Controlling Thermal Gradient in WAAM Deposition
Abstract
The Wire Arc Additive Manufacturing (WAAM) process is an evolving technology that is growing in the aerospace industry due to its promises of reducing material waste, production costs, and lead time. The WAAM process has several issues that have prevented its popularity from increasing, such as residual stresses and the distortion. These two problems are controlled by the thermal gradient which also affects the microstructure of the deposited metallic parts. To control the deposition quality, we must control the thermal gradient which is affected by several input parameters. In this research different parameters namely, interlayer time, initial temperature, oscillation width and travel speed, have been simulated using the finite element method to calculate the thermal gradient and to understand the effects that controls the thermal behaver. It is found that the initial temperature affects the temperature distribution in the first layer whereas the interlayer time slightly affects the temperature distribution and the thermal gradient. Additionally, the oscillation width increasing the thermal gradient when it is narrow and decreasing the thermal gradient when it is wide. In terms of the travel speed, it seems decreasing with the increasing the travel speed.