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

ABSTRACT

Wire + Arc Additive Manufacture (WAAM) is an additive manufacturing technology that can produce near net-shape parts layer by layer in an automated manner using welding technology controlled by a robot or CNC machine. WAAM has been shown to produce parts with good structural integrity in a range of materials including titanium, steel and aluminium and has the potential to produce high value structural parts at lower cost with much less waste material and shorter lead times that conventional manufacturing processes.

This paper provides an initial set of design rules for WAAM and presents a methodology for build orientation selection for WAAM parts. The paper begins with a comparison between the design requirements and capabilities of WAAM and other additive manufacturing technologies, design guidelines for WAAM are then presented based on experimental work. A methodology to select the most appropriate build orientation for WAAM parts is then presented using a multi attribute decision matrix approach to compare different design alternatives. Two aerospace case study parts are provided to illustrate the methodology.

KEYWORDS:

• Additive manufacture
• design for manufacture
• aerospace engineering

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank all members of the Wire and Arc Additive Manufacturing research team at Cranfield University for their contributions to this research paper. In particular we would like to thank post-graduate students Nan Lin, Anthony Fernando, Wang Lei, Robert Emms and Panos Kazanas who have all contributed to the research through their post-graduate thesis projects.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Helen Lockett http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1405-6633

Filomeno Martina http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7657-8253