Academic literature on the topic 'Robotized wire deposition'

Purpose The purpose of this study is to present how the thermal energy transmission of circular parts produced in robotized gas metal arc (GMA)-based additive manufacturing was affected by the substrate shape through finite element analysis, including distributions of thermal energy and temperature gradient in the molten pool and deposited layers. Design/methodology/approach Three geometric shapes, namely, square, rectangle and round were chosen in simulation, and validation tests were carried out by corresponding experiments. Findings The thermal energy conduction ability of the deposited layers is the best on the round substrate and the worst on the rectangular substrate. The axial maximum temperature gradients in the molten pool along the deposition path with the round substrate are the largest during the deposition process. At the deposition ending moment, the circumferential temperature gradients of all layers with the round substrate are the largest. A large temperature gradient usually stands for a good heat conduction condition. Altogether, the round substrate is more suitable for the fabrication of circular thin-walled parts. Originality/value The predicted thermal distributions of the circular thin-walled part with various substrate shapes are helpful to understand the influence of substrate shape on the thermal energy transmission behavior in GMA-based additive manufacturing.

The welding market is changing globally, becoming eco-friendly, robotized and automated. The tungsten inert gas welding (TIG) process is indispensable in industries that require high-quality welds with the absence of spatter and fumes. However, the production rate of TIG welding is very low, which limits its many applications. The present study introduces a novel TIG welding method called super-TIG welding. Super-TIG welding is able to produce a high production rate of welds compared to other fusion welding methods. In super-TIG welding, the novel C-type filler is used, which is different from the conventional TIG welding of circular wire. The relations of the heat input ratio in super-TIG welding to weld pool length and weld bead geometry were measured using the Inconel 625 C-filler. Two types of deposition techniques were used for a bead-on-plate welds, such as stringer beads and oscillation beads. The weld pool and bead geometry measurements are found to be different between stringer beads and oscillation bead techniques. The length of the molten pool and bead size were higher for oscillation beads over the stringer beads. These changes were associated with the difference in heat transfer contact area and bead height.

SUMMARYCladding through laser metal deposition is a promising application of additive manufacturing. On the one hand, industrial robots are increasingly used in cladding because they provide wide wrist reorientation, which enables manufacturing of complex geometries. On the other hand, limitations in robot dynamics may prevent cladding of sharp edges and large objects. To overcome these issues, this paper aims at exploiting the residual degrees of freedom granted by the cladding process for the optimization of the deposition orientation. The proposed method optimizes the robot head orientation along a predefined path while coping with kino-dynamic constraints as well as process constraints. Experimental tests and results are reported and used to validate the approach.

Metal wire deposition by means of robotized laser welding offers great saving potentials, i.e. reduced costs and reduced lead times, in many different applications, such as fabrication of complex components, repair or modification of high-value components, rapid prototyping and low volume production, especially if the process can be automated. Metal deposition is a layered manufacturing technique that builds metal structures by melting metal wire into beads which are deposited side by side and layer upon layer. This thesis presents a system for on-line monitoring and control of robotized laser metal wire deposition (RLMwD). The task is to ensure a stable deposition process with correct geometrical profile of the resulting geometry and sound metallurgical properties. Issues regarding sensor calibration, system identification and control design are discussed. The suggested controller maintains a constant bead height and width throughout the deposition process. It is evaluated through real experiments, however, limited to straight line deposition experiments. Solutions towards a more general controller, i.e. one that can handle different deposition paths, are suggested.

A method is also proposed on how an operator can use different sensor information for process understanding, process development and for manual on-line control. The strategies are evaluated through different deposition tasks and considered materials are tool steel and Ti-6Al-4V. The developed monitoring system enables an operator to control the process at a safe distance from the hazardous laser beam.

The results obtained in this work indicate promising steps towards full automation of the RLMwD process, i.e. without human intervention and for arbitrary deposition paths.

RMS

La fabrication additive par dépôt sous énergie concentrée (DED) permet la fabrication rapide de petites séries de pièces. Cependant, les trajectoires usuellement utilisées pour les pièces présentant du porte-à-faux nécessitent l’utilisation de supports, matériau non utile à la pièce finale dont le dépôt et l’enlèvement sont chronophages. Si les trajectoires multi-axes permettent de s’en passer, elles présentent généralement des distances locales inter-couches hétérogènes, nécessitant d’ajuster la hauteur de couche par la paramétrie de dépôt, pouvant alors impacter les caractéristiques mécaniques de la pièce finie. Cette thèse propose, dans un premier temps, une méthode de génération de trajectoire multi axes à distance locale inter-couches constante pour des tubulures définies par des courbes guides paramétrées et pouvant présenter des variations de rayon de profil. Les trajectoires proposées ont ensuite été validées par la fabrication additive robotisée de démonstrateurs en matériau polymère. La rotation autour de l’axe d’un outil de dépôt coaxial n’ayant pas d’incidence sur le dépôt, l’utilisation de robots 6-axes admet une redondance. En utilisant cette redondance, une méthode d’optimisation couche par couche de la trajectoire dans l’espace articulaire est finalement proposée. Pour une configuration de robot contrainte, l’optimisation permet la fabrication de pièces impossibles à produire de manière classique et apporte une amélioration de leur qualité géométrique ainsi qu’une meilleure répétabilité
Additive manufacturing through Directed Energy Deposition (DED) enables small batches of parts to be rapidly manufactured. However, manufacturing trajectories usually used for the manufacture of overhanging parts require the use of supports, material which is not useful for the finished part and time consuming. If multi-axis trajectories can be used to avoid them, they present generally a heterogeneous local inter-layer distance, thus requiring a variation of the deposition parameters to adapt the layer height ; variation that can be harmful to the mechanical characteristics of the final part. This thesis first proposes a constant local inter-layer trajectory generation method for DED additive manufacturing of tubular parts defined by parametric curves and which can have profile radius variations. The proposed trajectories have been validated by robotized manufacturing trials of polymer parts. Since the rotation about a coaxial deposition tool axis has no impact on the deposit, the use of 6-axis robots offers a redundancy. Using this redundancy, a layer by layer optimization of the trajectory in the robot space is then proposed. In a constrained robot configuration, the trajectory optimization allows the manufacturing of parts that cannot be manufactured in the usual way, and improves the geometrical quality of the parts with a better repeatability

Additive manufacturing has attracted the attention of industries such as aerospace and automotive as well as the medical technology sectors in recent years. Among all metal-based additive techniques, laser metal wire deposition offers some advantages like shorter processing time, more efficient material usage, and a larger buildup envelop. It has been found that robotized laser/wire additive manufacturing (RLWAM) is a demanding process. A plethora of process parameters must be controlled compared to other laser-based metal deposition processes. The influence of main process parameters such as laser power, stepover increment, wire feed speed, travel speed and z-increment was investigated in this study to find the optimal values. Droplet formation, wire dripping, irregular deposition in the first layer, and deviation of the wire tip were also found to be the main obstacles throughout the process and practical solutions were proposed to deal with these issues. In this study, an 8-axis robot (6-axis arm robot with a 2-axis positioner) and a 4 kW fiber laser along with a wire feeder were integrated to print the different geometrical shapes in 3D. In order to verify the geometrical accuracy of the as-built part, the buildup was scanned using a portable 3D laser scanner. The 3D representation, the Standard Tessellation Language (STL) format obtained from the buildup, was compared with the original CAD model. The results show that RLWAM can be successfully applied in printing even complicated geometries.