HW2: Wire Arc Additive Manufacturing

MD. RASHEF MAHBUB

1. What materials have been studied in literature? Structural or weld materials? Buying source
?

Materials Structured or Welded Buying Source

Welded N/A
Stainless Steel/Nickel
Structured, later Welded N/A
Aluminum
N/A N/A
Titanium, SS, Aluminum
(Review Paper)
Structured N/A
Stainless Steel
Structured N/A
Ti-6Al-4V

Some Material Buying Sources link:

1.
https://www.allmetalsalesinc.com/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI25LKopyw5QIVA18NCh2zSQ9oEAAYAiA
AEgIfpPD_BwE
2. http://www.goodfellow.com/E/Metals.html
3. https://www.advent-rm.com
4. http://www.researchalloys.com

2. What geometries were selected for printing ? Rationale behind these geometries?

Geometry Rationale
Materials
Dissimilar metal joint to investigate the mechanical
Stainless Steel/Nickel properties near the interface
between two kinds of weld
metal made by dissimilar
metal deposition
 walls Cause residual stresses was
Aluminum investigated using neutron
diffraction and how vertical
inter pass rolling and side
rolling can be used to control
residual stress and
distortion.
Miscellaneous N/A
Titanium, SS, Aluminum
(Review Paper)

Linear wall structure to study the mechanical

Stainless Steel properties
of the maraging steel
produced by WAAM
Ti-6Al-4V Wall structure N/A

Fig: Geometry for Nickel and Stainless-Steel dissimilar metal joints

Fig: Geometry for Aluminum wall

 Fig: Linear wall structure for maraging stainless-steel

Fig: Wall structure for Ti-6Al-4V

3 & 4. For each material - what wire operating conditions were used to make the parts ? What
microstructural effects did they observe? What property mappings did they do ? What
reasoning was given for the microstructural changes ?
 Wire Operating Microstructural Effects Property Mappings
Material Conditions and reasonings
Stainless Current 140 A, Voltage mainly composed of Hardness was almost
Steel 20.6 V, FS 200 mm/min, austenite, and delta - same in the SS Weld
Wire Diameter 1.2 mm ferrite can be observed Area
slightly near the
austenite grain boundary

Mainly Dendritic
Nickel Current 140 A, Voltage Hardness was almost
24.2 V, FS 200 mm/min, same in the Nickel
Wire Diameter 1.2 mm Weld Area
For Nickel weld metal
Weld area area, austenite grain was Was slightly lower in
interface observed. For Steel weld weld area interface
metal area, grain size of
delta-ferrite was larger
than that of
metallographic structure
shown. This is mainly
caused by the heat effect
when Ni was deposited

Aluminum wire feed speed 100 N/A Vertical inter-pass

mm/s, travel speed of 10 rolling modifies the
mm/s, 100% argon residual stress in
shielding gas, flow rate aluminium
of 25 l/min. WAAM and work
hardens the material.
It can also provide
improved yield and
tensile strengths.
N/A large columnar prior β porosity was
Titanium, SS, grain were refined in Ti- decreased in
Aluminum 6Al-4 V. aluminium
(Review Improvements were alloy (6.3%Cu) while
Paper) noticed for variable CMT variable polarity
polarity CMT using Al- pulse was used.
6Mg filler wire while a
columnar to equiaxed
transition was done and
ultimate tensile strength
was maximized
compared to pulse CMT
Stainless MARVAL 18S of 1.2 mm A usual dendritic In as deposited
Steel in diameter structure was noticed condition, UTS and YS
with long columnar reduced generally
grains at the bottom part from the bottom to
of the top. On average,
the as deposited both of these values
material that portrays were higher in the
the iron‑nickel horizontal direction
martensitic than vertical one. This
matrix decorated with is mostly because of
austenite between the existence of the
the dendrites. However, layer band in as
the top part is also deposited material.
dendritic but it has less After the standard
columnar grains aging heat treatment,
exhibiting less contrast the UTS and YS values
after etching with little at each corresponding
austenite locations increase
observed. significantly.
after the heat treatment,
the formation of a
large amount of
precipitates all over the
WAAM structure adds to
the
contrast near the top
part after etching. The
microstructure
throughout
the cross section exhibits
a greater proportion of
discrete austenitic
islands
along the inter-dendritic
boundaries. Besides, the
low‑carbon lath
martensite tends to
become thinner and the
aspect ratio of the
austenitic islands
becomes lower by
transforming from
dendritic shape to a
more
 circular shape because of
the heat treatment.
Deposition Current For the vertical planes, Higher values are
Ti-6Al-4V 110A, Arc Voltage 12V, horizontal planes and measured in the base
Travel Speed 95 base metal regions, the metal samples which
mm/min, Wire feed prime variation in was followed by
speed 1000 mm/min microstructure vertical plane and then
is the generation of horizontal plane.
martensite lamellae α These disparities
with Widmanstätten are obviously
structure associated to the
and acicular α’ structure formation of α and α’
owing to the differences martensite
in thermal behavior Microstructure. A little
at each different high hardness value at
location. The layers the vertical plane is
being successively found to be beneficial
deposited while the to corrosion resistance
WAAM process, the improvement.
cooling rate
progressively reduces for
higher
Layers which contributes
to the variation in
microstructural
evolution.

5. What are the outstanding materials related issues in this field?

The success of any manufacturing endeavor depends a lot on perfect material selection, so is in
Wire Arc Additive. Material selection depends on a lot of initial criterions but most importantly
at initial stage, criterion to fit in the application and cost of material come into play. However,
going into deeper, manufacturing processes leave huge impact on material properties so things
even on microstructural phase now are taken into consideration. Distinctive WAAM includes
repeated heating and cooling so thermal history of materials are very important as they are
directly related to the microstructure. Different materials and their alloys already have
distinctive properties and microstructure. WAAM process has certain similar or different effects
on each of those properties of each of those materials. Defects and dislocation geometries are
also very different material wise. So, choice of materials and material processing are a very
important and pressing issue in WAAM.

6. If you were to select a set of materials to implement on RPI's WAAM setup - which ones
would you start with and what study would you want to run ? Explain how this would yield new
knowledge to the scientific community.
According to the literature review, Ti-6Al-4V have superior properties taking everything in
consideration so I would like to recommend that for implementing on RPI’s WAAM setup.
However, Ti-6AL-4V is a highly costly materials so not very wise to be used in initial small
research project. Also, post processing of Ti-6AL-4V might be tricky after WAAM as it’s a hard to
machine material. So, as a second choice, I would like to recommend Aluminum and its alloys to
be used in RPI’s WAAM setup because of its high machinability and cost effectiveness along
with other decent properties.
For processing materials to be used in biomedical application, WAAM can be a prospective
choice. However, most of the biomedical applications, precisely while dealing with implants,
need to have some common and must material properties like optimum cell adhesion and
proliferation, better corrosion resistance and proper fatigue characteristics to sustain for years
inside human body. Ti-6AL-4V or other titanium alloys processed by WAAM could be run
through all these (Cell attachment and proliferation, fatigue performance, corrosion resistance)
testing which would be an interesting study to examine. If that fails different criterion, the type
and pattern of the failure and reasons behind that have to be acknowledged and probable
solution model can be produced for the betterment of future biomedical research in
manufacturing field.

Papers Reviewed for Literature:

1. Dissimilar metal deposition with a stainless steel and nickel-based alloy using wire and
arc-based additive manufacturing
2. Control of residual stress and distortion in aluminium wire + arc additive manufacture
with rolling

3. Invited review article: Strategies and processes for high quality wire arc additive
manufacturing
4. Microstructural evolution and mechanical properties of maraging steel produced by
wire +arc additive manufacture process
5. The anisotropic corrosion behaviour of wire arc additive manufactured Ti-6Al-4V alloy in
3.5% NaCl solution