Multi-material Wire-arc Additive Manufacturing

The Multi-Material Additive Manufacturing (MMAM) is an extension of additive manufacturing (AM) technology. The AM is a relatively new process wherein complex parts are manufactured by depositing the material layer by layer. This extension can enhance the functional properties of the components. MMAM of metals is still a challenge in various AM processes due to the material delivery system and bonding of various materials. MMAM is proposed for two combinations of materials, namely, metal-metal and metal-non-metal. In the metal-metal approach, dissimilar multi-wire gas metal arc welding (GMAW) process will be employed. The welding process will be integrated with robot/ computer numeric control (CNC) for fabricating complex geometries. A multi-layer multi-pass technique will be deployed with the material variation between layers, within a layer, and both combined. The proposed metal-metal method will also investigate preplaced insert that bonds between different materials like the masonry work in building structures. The investigation will involve experimental work followed by characterization of residual stresses, distortion, and process-structure property relation in MMAM of metallic structures