New Process Implementation to Enhance Cold Spray-Based Additive Manufacturing

摘要

Cold spraying (CS) is a solid-state coating technique that has been applied as a novel additive manufacturing (AM) method to fabricate freestanding metal components. Recent advances in cold spray additive manufacturing (CSAM) technology call for new process implementation to improve manufacturing accuracy and flexibility. In this study, a concept of modular systems is presented to design and implement a new CSAM framework. The current CSAM system is an open framework system composed of different modules. The flow of the proposed CSAM system is explained to understand the physical and functional relationships between the key elements of the entire system. This physical and functional modularity is useful to promote hybrid AM processes. In addition, based on the smart manufacturing concept of Industry 4.0, a novel approach is proposed to bring the perception and the decision-making abilities into the traditional CS system. Here, a 3D profiler is used to measure the morphology of deposited coatings online and to transfer data to the robot controller. The developed algorithm compares the obtained results with a theoretical model to ensure an adaptive adjustment of the robot trajectory. The experimental validation shows that this approach achieves closed-loop control for CSAM with high-precision by optimizing kinematic parameters in real time.