Development and analysis of hybrid additive manufacturing process

Abstract

Additive manufacturing (AM) is the process of joining materials to make parts or objects from 3D model data, usually layer upon layer, as opposed to subtractive manufacturing methodologies. The additive manufacturing is also called rapid prototyping, 3D printing etc. It can produce complex geometrical net or near-net shapes and ready to use products. Earlier it was used for fast fabrication of prototypes to check shape, size and functions, as the AM has freedom in part design and also the capability to reduce the production time, waste and cost. Nowadays, additive manufacturing is widely used in automotive, aerospace, biomedical, defence, electronics and construction etc. sectors. Direct Energy Deposition (DED) is a series of several similar metal 3D printing technologies that creates parts by melting and fusing material as it is deposited. The combination of an electric arc as heat source and wire as feedstock is referred to as wire arc additive manufacturing (WAAM). The arc-based additive manufacturing processes are growing fastly in the manufacturing industry as it can fabricate metal components in lower cost with shorter production time. The various WAAM processes are gas metal arc welding (GMAW), gas tungsten arc welding (GTAW), plasma arc welding (PAW). WAAM is better than other AM technologies as it provides better material deposition, lower energy consumption and improved energy efficiency. The combination of laser as heat source and wire as a feed stock is referred to as wire laser additive manufacturing (WLAM). The objective of the study is to compare Wire TIG Additive Manufacturing, Wire MIG Additive Manufacturing, Wire Laser Additive Manufacturing, Laser-TIG Hybrid Additive Manufacturing and MIG-TIG Hybrid Additive Manufacturing under a common set of parameters and material and to identify the efficient process based on energy utilization, bead quality (height, width and uniformity) and material property (hardness).