Assessing the effect of TIG alternating current time cycle on aluminium wire + arc additive manufacture

The effect of electrode positive time cycle (% EP) of the alternating current TIG process has been investigated for aluminium wire + arc additive manufacture of linear walls. The study considered the effect on oxide removal, linear wall dimensions, microstructure, mechanical properties as well as the effect on electrode wear. The results showed that the effective wall width was minimum at 20%EP with a corresponding maximum in layer height. It was also observed that increasing the% EP increased the electrode wear rate, which in turn affected the arc stability. Microstructure analysis showed a noticeable increase in the grain size for higher% EP. The study also showed that% EP had no significant effect on mechanical properties. From a heat input analysis, a direct correlation was observed between the arc voltage and the% EP. The study also indicated that there could be other contributing factors to wall dimensions. For aluminium wire + arc additive manufacture of linear walls, minimum cleaning ranged between 10%EP and 20%EP

Effect of the deposition strategy on Al-Cu alloy wire+ arc additive manufacture

The effect of the deposition strategy on wire + arc additive manufacture (WAAM) has been conducted for aluminium alloys. In this study, oscillation and parallel deposition strategies were considered for thicker section linear wall building. The results indicate that the deposition strategy has a significant effect on mechanical properties and hardness of the WAAM structure. Optimum ultimate tensile and yield strength were identified after post-deposition heat treatment for both strategies. From microstructure analysis, it was observed that walls produced by oscillation deposition strategy were characterised by equiaxed grains whilst parallel deposited walls were characterised by a mixed grain structure consisting of columnar and equiaxed grains. It was also observed that parallel deposited walls showed an increased number of pores as compared to walls deposited using oscillation strategy. For the studies conducted on aluminium wire + arc additive manufacture, it has been found that the deposition strategy plays an important role in the quality of walls produce

PhD in Manufacturing

Aluminium matrix composites are required by manufacturers to produce light weight components or parts with improved mechanical properties over conventional aluminium alloys. These materials are useful for complex structures with locally strengthened properties which are difficult to produce by conventional techniques such as subtractive and formative processes. In this research wire and powder feed additive manufacture processes were investigated for their suitability for producing aluminium matrix particle reinforced composites as an alternative to conventional processes. The research focusses on the use of wire + powder additive manufacture to produce aluminium silicon carbide composites. Different process variants were investigated including the use of either gas metal arc, gas tungsten arc or a laser as the heat source. In depth investigations of the main process parameters such as travel speed, arc or laser power were carried out. Of these both the gas tungsten arc and the laser proved to be viable options. It was found that a melt pool with as high a temperature as possible is required to successfully inject particles into the melt. Therefore it was found necessary to insulate the substrate in which the melt bead was being generated. Detailed studies into the other controlling factors for embedding the SiC particles into aluminium melt pool were explored. It was found that the most important are the nozzle feeding direction, particle size, particle velocity and type of shielding gas. For example, it was necessary to use 150 μm SiC particles in order to successfully break the surface oxides and penetrate the melt pool correspondingly. For the arc based processes using helium as the shielding gas was highly beneficial as it resulted in a much larger melt pool size in comparison to using argon. It was found that particles were distributed at the top and bottom surface of helium produced melt beads. On the other hand, particles were mainly distributed at the top surface of argon and laser melt injected melt beads. For the laser process, the particles penetrated more than 1.5 mm into the melt bead. Finally the investigation showed that increasing the particle feed rate and heat input increases the % volume fraction of SiC reinforcement particles captured