Fabrication of a test artifact for WAAM

10/01/2020

With the current increasing interest in metal additive manufacturing, caused by its capacity to reduce both material waste and lead times of each part, comes a subsequent growing need of test artifacts that allow to further increase the extent of these advantages. Be that as it may, there isn't a test artifact dedicated to the exclusive analyses of WAAM produced parts. As such, in this work a test artifact was developed comprised of a 60º inclined wall, a set of thin pins that progressively reduced in diameter until the setup failed to replicate the CAD model's dimensions, a set of thin resolution holes whose diameter also progressively reduced until dimensional failure was achieved, two sets of straight walls oriented both along the X and Y axes, a cross shaped intersection and a staircase vertical increment. Upon deposition parameters optimization, the results revealed the thinnest features possible to print on the selected setup, as well as the range of inclination at which was possible to produce inclined walls. Moreover, it was possible to assess how the setup dealt with geometries with intersections and cross-overs, as well as geometries with increasing internal heat accumulation. More importantly, the test artifact created allowed to pinpoint several hardware and software limitations in addition to allowing to evaluate the performance of the robotic arm's along the X, Y and Z axes, and look for any existing miscalibrations or deviations.

Authors in the community:

• 

  L

  Lourenço Drumond Dias

  ist181033

Supervisors of this institution:

• 

  I

  Inês da Fonseca Pestana Ascenso Pires

  ist13787

• 

  E

  Eurico Gonçalves Assunção

  ist149997

mechanical-engineering - Mechanical engineering

eng - English

Instituto Superior Técnico