Investigation of arc based additive manufacturing

摘要

Additive manufacturing (AM) as a subject has received a great deal of interest in recent years as a method of manufacturing near net shape metallic components directly from design data without the need for stages of pre-forming, casting, forging or machining from billet. There are several approaches to AM of metallic materials, but whatever the process, the basic concept is the same: using a controlled source of heat to melt a metal feedstock (consumable) in a specific point in space and combining these points to create a layer of fused metal. These layers are then stacked upon each other to create the desired three-dimensional part. There are different heat sources and feedstock options available, and different combinations have different capabilities. This report describes work carried out using the metal inert/active gas (MIG/MAG) process i.e. an arc as a heat source and feedstock in the form of a wire.