Journal of Manufacturing Processes 52 (2020) 96–105

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Journal of Manufacturing Processes

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/manpro

Forming and mechanical properties of wire arc additive manufacture for T

marine propeller bracket
He Tianying, Yu Shengfu*, Shi Yusheng, Anguo Huang
State Key Laboratory of Materials Processing and Die & Mould Technology, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Luoyu Road 1037, Wuhan, China

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: The marine propeller bracket is a complex core component of large ship power system. Wire Arc additive
Wire arc additive manufacture manufacturing is an effective method to manufacture propeller bracket, which consists of the hub, the support
Propeller bracket and cross arm. For obtaining high forming precision, offset filling method for printing hub and scanning filling
Path planning method for printing support and cross arm are adopted. Central deviations of deposition layer are acquired by a
Forming precision
3D scanner and a program written by Matlab software. Adjusting print path in real time to improve forming
Dimension error
Microstructure
precision of bracket. The cross section center offset of each deposition layer is within ± 0.6mm while the di-
Mechanical performance mensional errors of bracket are within ± 0.8 mm. The microstructure of bracket is composed of ferrite, lath
bainite and VC precipitates. The tensile strength of printed bracket is 796 MPa, the yield strength is 660 MPa and
the impact toughness at −20°C is 53 J.

1. Introduction
The marine propeller bracket is an important component of large
ships, which is used to support the propeller rotating in high speed. It
has high requirements for dimensional accuracy and mechanical
properties [1]. The propeller bracket is consisted of the hub, the support
arm and the cross arm. At present, the method of combining casting and
welding is used to manufacture it. Because the propeller bracket is
manufactured using ZG230-450 steel which has poor fluidity, and the
thickness of the hub generally larger than 200 mm, shrinkage and
porosity are easy to occur in the casting process. When welding con-
nections between the hub, the support arm and the cross arm, the grain
of heat affected zone (HAZ) enlargement, the mechanical properties
decrease and can’t meet the requirements [1–3]. In order to obtain
brackets of high precision and good performance, a new manufacturing
method is needed.
Wire arc additive manufacture (WAAM) uses arc as heat source to
melt down the metal wires; the component is formed by accumulating
melted metal layer by layer [4]. It has the advantage of processing
without mold, small molten pool. It can avoid shrinkage and porosity of
the bracket in the manufacturing process. WAAM is an integrated
manufacturing method, which can avoid the shortcomings of coarse
grain and low performance in HAZ during welding process [4–9]. It is
an effective method for fabricating high-performance bracket compo-
nents.
The accuracy of the deposition layer is not only related to the po-
sitional accuracy of the arc torch, but also depends on the stability of
the forming process. In the process of WAAM, first, the component will
generate thermal stress and thermal deformation as the temperature
changes with the progress of fabricating. Second, the size and contour
of the deposition layer will also be offset due to fluctuations in process
parameters during the manufacturing process. Finally, there is an error
in the wire accuracy due to the wear of the tip. These factors will cause
the position of the deposition layer to be offset from the preset position.
When fabricating the parts by WAAM, the dimension accuracy of each
deposition layer itself will affect the accuracy of components. Since the
WAAM is multi-pass deposition, when the center of the cross-section of
each layer is offset, the structural variation of the WAAM bracket is
caused. In order to obtain high precision forming components, it is
necessary to control not only the size accuracy of each accumulation
layer, but also the offset of cross-section center between layers.
Many researches were done more research to improve the precision
of WAAM components. Zhou et al. mills each deposition layer after its
forming to meet accuracy requirements [10]. However, the accuracy of
the single-pass layer is ensured, and the layers must be thicker so that
they could be milled, making this method poor in material utilization.
M. Karmuhilan and Anoop Kumar Sood established the mathematical
model of WAAM deposition process parameters and forming size, and
optimized the process parameters to obtain high-precision single-
channel deposit [11]. In recent years, the method of real-time

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: d201780309@hust.edu.cn (T. He), yushengfu@hust.edu.cn (S. Yu), shiyusheng@hust.edu.cn (Y. Shi), huang-anguo@hust.edu.cn (A. Huang).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmapro.2020.01.053
Received 3 April 2019; Received in revised form 23 October 2019; Accepted 29 January 2020
1526-6125/ © 2020 The Society of Manufacturing Engineers. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
T. He, et al.
Table 1
Chemical composition 3D printing of propeller bracket (wt/%).
C Si Mn Cr Ni
0.06–0.08 ≤0.40 1.00–1.30 0.50–0.80 2.80–3.40
measurement of deposition layer size and adjustment of accumulative
process parameters has been used to realize the control of the layer size.
Heralic et.al. introduced line structured light to monitor the size of the
one-pass deposition layer real-time, feedback to get the size. The geo-
metric size of the stacking layer can be controlled by adjusting the laser
power and wire feeding speed [12]. They only control the dimension
accuracy of each deposition by adjusting the process parameters,
without considering the influence of the offset of cross-section center
between layers on the overall dimension accuracy of components, and
can not form high-precision structural parts. Xiong et al. introduced two
cameras with different perspectives and made a two-eye passive vision
WAAM system capable of performing 3D measurements on the accu-
mulation layers [13]. The error in width is reduced to less than 0.4 mm.
Nor did he consider the low accuracy of structural dimensions caused
by the offset of cross-section centers between the layers. Now, three-
dimensional measurement and adjustment of stacking process para-
meters are mainly used to control the size of single deposition layer to
achieve the purpose of printing high-precision components. Without
considering the problem of low accuracy of structural dimensions
caused by the offset of cross-section centers between layers, high-pre-
cision components are often not manufactured.
In the process of forming, it is very important to obtain accurately
and efficiently the offset of the completed section center of the de-
position layer for improving the accuracy of the printed components.
Firstly, it is necessary to collect the complete contour information of the
depositing layer, and then the appropriate data processing method can
be used to obtain the accurate offset of the cross-section center. Surface
structured light 3D scanner adopts grating scanning technology, which
has the advantages of high efficiency, high precision, automatic splicing
of landmarks and wide imaging range [14]. Therefore, using it can
collect point cloud files of the whole contour of accumulation layer with
high speed and high quality. At present, most of the data processing
methods for 3D measurement of deposition layer in WAAM based on
the gray scale analysis of laser fringe photographs to obtain the geo-
metric dimensions of stacking layer cross-section. Li et al. used gray
weight centroid algorithm to analyze the linear laser fringe image to
obtain the size of the deposit cross section morphology [15]. By ana-
lyzing the gray scale of laser fringe photographs, they can get the cross-
section size of the accumulation layer, so they cannot quickly measure
the cross-section information of the whole layer. Therefore, it is ne-
cessary to study a data processing method for point clouds of deposi-
tions to realize real-time feedback of the offset of the center of its
section. According to the feedback offset, the preset printing path is
modified to improve the structural dimensional accuracy of compo-
nents. Aiyiti et al. deposited the samples in three different path plan-
ning methods based on plasma welding process, and carried out tensile
tests. The results show that the mechanical properties of longitudinal
forming parts are better than those of transverse forming parts, and the
orthogonal stacking parts are between them [16]. It is well known that
the different printing paths will make the mechanical properties of
components have great differences. In order to improve the dimensional
accuracy of component structure by modifying the printing path, it is
also necessary to analyze the overall accuracy and mechanical prop-
erties of the formed component.
In this paper, the processing method of measuring the point cloud
data of the deposition layer by the surface structure light 3D scanner is
studied, the acquisition of the offset cross-section center between each
layers, the adjustment of the printing path and the precision of the
printing component are researched in the process of WAAM. The
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Journal of Manufacturing Processes 52 (2020) 96–105
Mo V Ti B Fe
0.20–0.40 0.05–0.20 ≤0.015 ≤0.01 Bal.
WAAM propeller bracket was fabricated and its forming accuracy and
mechanical properties were measured. This research aimed at providing
basic data for manufacturing high-precision and performance metal
components by WAAM.
2. Experimental materials and methods
The deposition material used in the wire arc additive manufacture
process of the propeller bracket is a metal-type flux-core wire with a
diameter of 1.2 mm, whose metal chemical composition are shown in
Table 1. The forming system consists of a KUKA KR30HA robot and a
Fronius cold metal transfer (CMT) welding machine. The propeller
bracket is fabricated on a 500 mm × 500 mm × 50 mm Q235 steel
plate by WAAM.
The deposition current is 185 A, the deposition voltage is 24.4 V, the
deposition speed is 400 mm/min and the shielding gas is 80 % CO2 and
20 % Ar. The substrate should be ground and cleaned before printing
and the arc torch kept perpendicular to the molten pool surface during
the printing process. The one-pass deposition has a width of 7.4 mm
and a height of 2.0 mm.
In the manufacturing process, the three-dimensional measurement
of the deposition layer is performed by using the Powerscan 3D scanner
after each stack is formed and the point cloud file of the complete
contour of the current deposition layer is obtained. The Powerscan 3D
scanner has a resolution of 1.3 megapixels and the 3D measuring in-
strument has an accuracy of ± 0.02 mm. The point cloud processing
program based on MATLAB software is used to obtain the offset of the
layer section center, and the printing path is adjusted in real time ac-
cording to the offset to improve the printing accuracy of the bracket.
Before deposition, the accuracy of the section center coordinate
measurement method must be verified. First, the 500 mm × 500 mm ×
50 mm Q235 steel plate is fixed on the positioner, and the center of the
square plate is defined as the origin; Then place a standard circular
member with a diameter of 100 mm in the center of the substrate;
Finally, the center coordinate of the standard circular member is
measured by the section center coordinate measurement method.
Following, the central coordinates of the third layer and the radius are
measured and fitted to be (0.0417, −0.0523, 0.0459) and 99.867 mm
respectively.
The average error of the center coordinates of the section
is ± 0.0467 mm, and the fitting radius error is 0.13 %. After verifica-
tion, the accuracy of the measurement method satisfies the manu-
facturing requirements of the propeller bracket.
After deposition, the propeller bracket is overall measured, after-
wards the measured point cloud data is packaged and 3D compared
using Geomagic qualifying software. Meanwhile, the overall forming
error is analyzed. The sample is shown in Fig. 1. First, take a rectan-
gular block sample with a size of 140 mm × 300 mm × 10 mm on the
hub of the WAAM propeller bracket, as shown in Fig. 1(a); then take
three samples along the deposition direction and three samples per-
pendicular to the deposition direction in the rectangular sample, as
shown in Fig. 1 (c). Taking samples on the propeller bracket to test the
mechanical properties, including tensile strength, yield strength and
impact test at the -20℃, and the microstructure of forming parts is
analyzed by optical microscopy and transmission electron microscope
(TEM), respectively.
T. He, et al.
Fig. 1. A schematic of (a) the rectangular block sample (b)dimension of tensile sample (c)the sampling positions.
3. Propeller bracket wire arc additive manufacture
3.1. Propeller bracket forming strategy and path planning
The propeller bracket can be divided into three parts: the hub, the
support arm and the cross arm, as shown in Fig. 2a. The hub is a thin-
walled column that is layer by layer deposited up on the substrate along
the direction of the cylinder axis till the required height. The section of
the cross arm in the height direction is a constantly changing rectangle.
When printing directly in the height direction, the horizontal offset
between the layers is large, and the arc is at the edge of the deposition
layer, which causes the molten pool to flow, collapse, and the arc is
unstable or even extinguished, affecting the accuracy and performance
of the component. Therefore, the cross arm is divided into five parts of
2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 to print sequentially, as shown in Fig. 2b. The support
arm is not coplanar, it’s divided into two parts in order to ensure the
Fig. 2. (a) Propeller bracket 3Dmodel. (b) Printing Strategy of Propeller bracket.
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Journal of Manufacturing Processes 52 (2020) 96–105
forming accuracy, as shown in Fig. 2b, 7 and 8. According to the above
partition method, the WAAM propeller bracket printing strategy is as
follows: first form the hub portion; then manufacture the cross arm in
sequence according to the five parts of 2, 3, 4, 5, 6; finally, in the order
of 7, 8 to fabricate the support arm.
According to the above printing strategy, the STL files of each part
to be printed are sequentially exported from the 3D model of the pro-
peller bracket by a common 3D modeling software called Unigraphics
NX (UG)developed by Siemens. The surface contour information of
each part is obtained by a program with JAVA language which can read
the STL files, and the coordinate values of the height of the initial slice
Zmin and the height of the terminating slice of the part Zmax are ob-
tained. Each part is sliced by the equal-thickness slicing algorithm in
turn, lifting 2 mm each time from Zmin till Zmax.
In the manufacturing process, the hub, support arm and cross arm
use a forming strategy of first printing the contour and then filling. The
T. He, et al.
Fig. 3. The path planning of propeller bracket (a)path planning of round. (b) path planning of rectangle.
hub area is a ring structure, which prints the inner and outer contours
first, and then prints by offset filling. The support arm and cross arm
area are rectangular structures, which forms the outer contour first, and
then printed by scanning. If the hub area adopts the scan-filling
method, there are many intermittent points in the printing path, which
increases the number of arc striking and reduces the forming precision
of the components, as shown in Fig. 3c. The path planning method in
the paper can ensure the forming precision of propeller bracket. The
offset adopt 3.7 mm for half of the width of the single-layer deposition
layer which is 7.4 mm ensures satisfying over-lap between each pass
and flat deposition layer surface, as shown in Fig. 3a. While shaping the
cross and support arm, the outer contour is printed first, and then it is
filled by scan-filling method along the length direction or the width
direction until the contour is filled up, besides the offset distance is also
3.7 mm, as shown in Fig. 3b.
According to the above forming strategy and path planning, the
path planning software written by JAVA is used to obtain the data point
printing file, and then the data point file is converted into the robot
motion track code and the instruction of arc striking or arc extin-
guishing according to the robot grammar to create a complete printing
instruction.
3.2. Propeller bracket forming and accuracy
In the process of WAAM, first, the component will generate thermal
stress and thermal deformation as the temperature changes with the
progress of fabricating. Second, the size and contour of the deposition
layer will also be offset due to fluctuations in process parameters during
the manufacturing process. Finally, there is an error in the wire accu-
racy due to the wear of the tip. These factors will cause the position of
the deposition layer to be offset from the preset position. Therefore, it is
necessary to control the error of the center of the cross section during
the forming process to avoid the error accumulation affecting the
forming precision of the component.
3.2.1. The hub forming and accuracy
The substrate fixed on the positioner is measured three-di-
mensionally before the printing starts, and the reference plane is ob-
tained by least squares fitting, as shown in Fig. 4a. The first layer of the
hub is deposited. After printing, the point cloud data of the current
deposition layer is collected by three-dimensional measurement, as
Fig. 4. (a) Background plane point cloud data. (b) Point cloud data before preprocessing. (c) Point cloud data after preprocessing.
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Journal of Manufacturing Processes 52 (2020) 96–105
shown in Fig. 4b.
Since many invalid background point cloud data will be collected
when the Powerscan surface structured light 3D scanner measures the
deposition layer. If the collected point cloud data is directly fitted to the
feature, it will not only increase the unnecessary calculation amount,
but also will affect the fitting accuracy. Therefore, it is necessary to
filter the point cloud data, delete the redundant point cloud, and
narrow the fitting range to the vicinity of the current deposition layer.
The slice height of each layer is 2.0 mm, and the height of the n-th
layer Zn is 2.0×n mm. The accumulated height error is less than 1.0
mm due to continuous accumulation. Therefore, in this experiment,
Zn ± 1.0 mm is chosen as the point cloud screening area. The data point
set M can be expressed as M= {(x, y, z)|zn − 1 < z< zn + 1} , where x is
the X coordinate of the data point, y is the Y coordinate of the data
point, and Z is the Z coordinate of the data point. Meanwhile, based on
the geometric size range of the propeller bracket model, the noise
points out of threshold related with coordinates are removed, and the
preprocessed point cloud data is shown in Fig. 4c.
Secondly, calculating the distance d between each point after pre-
processing and the reference plane, the result is shown in Fig. 5. The
sampling interval is defined as the height of accumulation layer
Zn ± 0.01 mm, and its set N can be formulated as
N= {(x, y, z)|z n − 0.01 < d< zn + 0.01}
where x is the X coordinate of the data point, y is the Y coordinate of the
data point, and Z is the Z coordinate of the data point.
Finally, a fitting model between geometric characteristic parameters
of cross section of each deposition layer and 3D point cloud data is
established to calculate the high-precision offset of cross-section.
(1) Calculate the center of gravity of all data points in set N, and mark
it as p0, and take it as the initial center coordinate; Calculate the
average distance from each data point to the center of gravity, mark
it as r0, and take it as the initial radius.
(2) Fitting the coordinates and radius of the center of the circle. Set
function F1 in MATLAB software can be expressed as
F1 = @(p)(X − p1 )2 + (Y − p2 )2 + (Z − p3 )2 − p4 2 ; where p1, p2 and
p3 are x, y and z coordinates of the center of the circle respectively,
and p4 is radius. Using the "lsqnonlin ()" function in the MATLAB
function library, based on the initial center coordinate p0 and radius
r0, the least square method is used to minimize the mean square
T. He, et al. Journal of Manufacturing Processes 52 (2020) 96–105

Fig. 5. (a) Distance from point to reference plane. (b) Filtered data points.

Table 2
The measured dimensions of the hub.
Cross section Inner diameter/ Out diameter/ Offset of cross section
height/mm mm mm center/mm

30 379.5 400.3 0.47

60 380.2 400.5 0.16
90 379.6 400.1 −0.07
120 380.0 399.9 0.28
150 379.4 400.2 −0.42
180 380.3 400.4 0.37
210 379.8 400.2 −0.32
240 380.5 399.8 −0.34
270 380.5 400.4 0.27
300 380.1 399.9 0.13
330 379.9 400.1 −0.46
360 380.6 400.4 −0.58
390 380.5 400.6 0.29
420 380.2 400.3 −0.40
450 380.5 399.4 −0.30
480 380.2 399.8 0.22
Fig. 6. Schematic diagram of the cross-section of the hub. 510 379.7 400.4 −0.31
540 379.6 400.6 −0.13
570 379.7 399.9 −0.23
error (MSE) of the function F1, so that the optimal center coordinate 600 380.0 400.2 0.38
and radius can be obtained. this function can be formulated as

p= lsqnonlin(F1, [p0 , r0]).

The fitting results show that the center coordinate of the first layer
of the bracket hub is (4.7356, -35.6350, 2.0768), and the radius is
400.563 mm.
After the first deposition layer is fitted, the second layer of the hub is
formed. Then, according to the above method, the center coordinates of
the second layer are (4.2625, -35.3451, 4.0562) and the radius is
400.234 mm. It can be seen that the second layer offsets -0.3731 mm
along the X-axis and 0.2899 mm along the Y-axis with respect to the
first layer. At this time, if the pre-planned print path is not corrected in
real time, the manufactured hub will be tilted, affecting accuracy, even
cannot be used. Therefore, the print path must be corrected to ensure
the verticality of the hub. The schematic diagram of the offset of the
hub cross-section is shown in Fig. 6.

Fig. 7. (a) the radius of the hub cross-section fluctuation curve. (b) the center offset of the hub cross-section fluctuation curve.

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Fig. 8. (a) Point cloud data before preprocessing. (b) Point cloud data after preprocessing.

Table 3
The measured dimensions of the support arm and the cross arm.
Cross Thickness of Center offset Thickness of Center offset
section support arm/ of support cross arm/mm of cross-arm
height/mm mm arm/mm section/mm

30 22.1 0.48 44.11 0.23

60 21.9 0.35 44.13 −0.49
90 22.0 0.58 43.87 −0.05
120 21.8 0.32 44.07 −0.06
150 21.9 0.56 43.95 −0.17
180 21.7 0.58 43.54 −0.41
210 22.0 0.34 43.52 0.21
240 22.2 −0.07 43.81 0.23
270 22.0 −0.20 43.51 0.27
300 22.1 −0.34 43.88 −0.02
Fig. 9. Schematic diagram of the cross-section of the support and cross arm. 330 21.7 0.17 44.18 0.06
360 21.9 −0.22 43.59 −0.45
390 22.3 0.55 43.53 −0.05
In the path planning of hub, the print path is calculated by the
420 22.2 0.27 44.11 0.26
following formula can be expressed as: 450 21.9 −0.10 44.10 0.47
480 22.1 0.29 43.51 −0.27
x1 = R*(Math. cos(Math. PI *angle /180))
510 22.3 −0.28 43.51 −0.29
540 21.5 −0.07 43.69 0.43
y1 = R *(Math. sin (Math. PI * angle /180)) Where "x1, y1" are the co-
570 22.1 0.52 – –
ordinates of the printed points; "angle" values from 0° to 360° at in- 600 21.6 0.22 – –
tervals of 2°; R is the deposition layer radius. 630 21.9 −0.34 – –
The third layer print path is corrected in real time according to the X 660 21.8 0.40 – –
direction offset amount “a” and the Y direction offset amount “b” by
can be expressed as:
cabinet to form the third layer of the hub. Following, the central co-
x1 = R*(Math. cos(Math. PI *angle /180)) − a ordinates of the third layer and the radius are measured and fitted to be
(4.6928, −35.4784, 6.1425) and 400.356 mm respectively. It can be
y1 = R*(Math. sin (Math. PI *angle /180)) − b
seen that the offset of the center coordinate of the deposition layer is
At this time, a = 0.3731; b = 0.2899. significantly reduced, a = 0.0428; b = 0.1566. At the same time, the
After the path correction, the code is imported into the robot control fourth layer print path is also corrected in real time. By analogy, it is

Fig. 10. (a) the center offset of the support arm cross-section fluctuation curve. (b) the center offset of the support arm cross-section fluctuation curve.

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Fig. 11. The forming process of the propeller bracket: (a) the hub. (b) the cross arm. (c) the support arm. (d) the propeller bracket.
formed in the sequence of print, measure and fit, path correction until
the end of the hub printed. The offset of the hub cross-section center is
within ± 0.6 mm and the radius variation is within ± 0.8 mm, center
offset and radius of the hub cross-section fluctuation curve as shown in
Fig. 7.
The three-dimensional measurement is performed after the hub is
formed, the result shown in Table 2. It is obviously that the accuracy of
the WAAM hub turn to be high by correcting the print path in real time.
3.2.2. The support and cross arm forming and accuracy
The support and cross arm employ the rectangular path planning
method during printing, and the rectangular outline is printed first and
then filled internally.
The first layer of the support arm is deposited. After printing, the
point cloud data of the current deposition layer is collected by three-
dimensional measurement, as shown in Fig. 8a. The point cloud data
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Journal of Manufacturing Processes 52 (2020) 96–105
after pre-processing is shown in Fig. 8b.
Calculating the center of gravity of all points, defined as M0, which
is the center of the rectangle; The function F2 is defined in the MATLAB
software can be expressed as F2 [rectx,recty,area] =
minboundrect(x, y, metric) . Using "minboundrect ()"in the MATLAB
function library to fit the minimum bounding rectangle for all data
points while returning the center coordinates of this rectangle. The
center coordinates of the first deposition layer of the support arm is
(198.4357, -33.1249, 302.7125).
After the first deposition layer is fitted, the second layer of the hub is
formed. Then, according to the above method, the center coordinates of
the second layer are (201.2168, −33.5674, 302.2274). It can be seen
that the second layer offsets −0.4425 mm along the Y-axis and
−0.4851 mm along the Z-axis with respect to the first layer. The print
paths are corrected in real time in the same way as the hub. The cor-
rection diagram is shown in Fig. 9.
T. He, et al. Journal of Manufacturing Processes 52 (2020) 96–105

Fig. 12. (a) 3D measurement model of the propeller bracket. (b) the deviation chromatogram of propeller bracket.

Table 4
Mechanical properties of the printing propeller bracket.
Material Yield strength Rp0.2/MPa Tensile strength Rm/MPa Elongation A/% Impact toughness (-20℃)AK/J

Casting propeller bracket ≥200 ≥400 ≥25.0 ≥30

Forming part (Perpendicular the deposition direction) 660 796 26.0 53
Forming part (Along the deposition direction) 651 778 23.0 48

Fig. 13. Microstructure of WAAM propeller bracket (a)Optical microstructure. (b)SEM microstructure.

Table 5 and the cross arm cross-section center is also within 0.6 mm, center
The chemical composition of propeller bracket. offset of the cross-section fluctuation curve as shown in Fig. 10. The
C Si Mn Cr Ni Mo V Ti B three-dimensional measurement is performed after the support and
cross arm is formed, the result shown in Table 3. It is obviously that the
0.07 0.32 1.17 0.68 3.20 0.35 0.15 0.013 0.0071 accuracy of the WAAM support and cross arm turn to be high by cor-
recting the print path in real time.

After the path correction, the code is imported into the robot control
3.3. Accuracy analysis of the propeller bracket
system to form the third layer of the hub. Following, the central co-
ordinates of the third layer is measured and fitted to be (203.4267,
The forming process of the propeller bracket is shown in Fig. 11. To
-33.2784, 302.4216). It can be seen that the offset of the center co-
import the point cloud file into the Geomagic qualifying software after
ordinate of the deposition layer is significantly reduced, a = 0.2890; b
measuring propeller bracket by a 3D scanner as shown in Fig. 12a. The
= 0.1942. At the same time, the fourth layer print path is also corrected
target model established by UG is shown in Fig. 1a. The steps of the
in real time. By analogy, it is formed in the sequence of print, measure
comparative analysis are as follows: (1) Import the scanned model into
and fit, path correction until the end of the support arm and the cross
Geomagic qualify as testing object; import the target model as the re-
arm printed.
ference object. (2) First a rough registration is done manually, then the
The offset of the support arm cross-section center is within 0.6 mm
high-precision registration is done through the function “best fit

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Fig. 14. The TEM photo of the propeller bracket (a) Lath bainite. (2) Dislocation in the lath bainite. (3) Precipitate. (4) Diffraction spots of precipitates.
registration” of the software. (3) 3D comparison.
The overall dimensional error of the propeller bracket is analyzed
by 3D comparison. The comparison results are shown in Fig. 12b. The
deviation chromatogram in Fig. 12b shows that the overall error is 80 %
distributed within ± 1.0 mm with an average deviation of ± 0.8 mm.
The forming accuracy of the propeller bracket is high, and the printing
strategy and path planning method are reasonable. The forming accu-
racy control method in the printing process can effectively improve the
accuracy of the WAAM propeller bracket.
During manufacturing process of propeller bracket, the cross-section
center offset of each deposition layer is within ± 0.6 mm, as shown in
Figs. 6 and 9. The deviation chromatogram in Fig. 11b shows that the
overall error is within ± 1.0 mm. It can be seen that a small cross-
section center offset causes a large overall error of the component. This
is because the offset of the center of the section causes the member to be
tilted as a whole, and the torsion phenomenon occurs, which causes the
overall accuracy of the member to decrease. Dai et al. manufactured a
high-building 10-directional pipe joint by WAAM. The dimensional
error of forming pipes were within ± 1.5 mm [17]. The overall di-
mensional error of the propeller bracket is ± 0.8 mm. The accuracy of
the forming part is improved by about 40 %. Therefore, it is necessary
to control the cross-section center offset of each layer to obtain a high-
precision WAAM propeller bracket.
4. Microstructure and performance of the propeller bracket
The mechanical properties of propeller bracket are shown in
Table 4. It can be observed that the tensile strength, yield strength and
−20 °C impact toughness of the WAAM propeller bracket are higher
than the casting one. The elongation is basically the same as the casting
one.
As shown in Table 4, the mechanical properties of propeller bracket
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Journal of Manufacturing Processes 52 (2020) 96–105
are substantially uniform in the direction perpendicular the deposition
direction and along to the deposition direction. As shown in Fig. 13, the
microstructure of propeller bracket is composed of fine ferrite and
bainite in a direction perpendicular the deposition direction and along
to the deposition direction. In the manufacturing process of WAAM
propeller bracket, the microstructure is transformed from a coarse so-
lidification structure into a uniform equiaxed ferrite after the single-
accumulation layer has experienced multiple thermal cycles. The mi-
crostructure and mechanical properties are uniform and have almost no
anisotropy. The microstructure of the propeller bracket is shown in
Fig. 13, which is composed of fine ferrite and bainite. The chemical
composition of the propeller bracket is as shown in Table 5, it is Mn and
Ni that enlarge the austenite phase zone, consequently delay the
transformation of austenite. The phase transformation of austenite oc-
curs at a lower temperature. At this time, C element is not easy to
diffuse, the solid solution of C in ferrite results in higher C content in
ferrite, which transforms into bainite after cooling process.
The lath bainite’s size is between 0.5 μm and 1 μm, as shown in
Fig. 14a, and there are high density dislocations, as shown in Fig. 14b.
Therefore, WAAM propeller bracket has an excellent toughness. A large
number of second-phase precipitates were precipitated in deposition
metal, as shown in Fig. 14c. Fig. 14d demonstrates the diffraction spot
of the precipitate, the crystal plane spacing and the angle of the crystal
plane are measured and compared with a standard PDF (power dif-
fraction file) card of Vanadium carbide (VC), which is VC [18]. So, the
bainite and VC precipitates ensure high strength of the propeller
bracket. To sum up, the WAAM propeller bracket be of excellent me-
chanical properties.
5. Conclusions
1. According to the structural characteristics of the propeller
T. He, et al.
bracket, the hub, cross arm and support arm are printed sequentially by
the block forming strategy. In order to obtain a high precision propeller
bracket, the printing hub adopts a path planning method of offset
filling; the printing support arm and the cross arm adopt a path plan-
ning method of scanning filling.
2.Central deviations of the layer of deposition are obtained by a
surface structured light 3D scanner and a point cloud processing pro-
gram written by MATLAB software. Adjusting the print path in real time
to improve the precision of propeller bracket. The cross section center
offset of each deposition layer of the hub are within ± 0.6 mm, and the
center offset of the support arm and the cross arm are also within ± 0.6
mm. The dimension error of WAAM propeller bracket is within ± 0.8
mm. The accuracy of the forming part is improved by about 40 %.
3. The microstructure of the WAAM propeller bracket is composed
of ferrite, lath bainite and VC precipitates. The lath bainite’s size is
between 0.5 μm and 1 μm, where exists high density dislocations. The
WAAM propeller bracket has a tensile strength Rm of 796 MPa, a yield
strength Rp0.2 of 660 MPa, an elongation of 22.0 %, and an impact
toughness AK at −20 °C of 53 J.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influ-
ence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the National Key R&D Program of
China, No. 2017YFB1103200 and Independent Innovation Fund of
Huazhong University of Science and Technology, No.
2018KFYXMPT002.
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