Research progress in wire arc additive manufacturing of aluminum alloys

Abstract

Wire arc additive manufacturing (WAAM) attracts much attention due to its unique feature of rapid near net shape forming without die. It has the potential to become an advanced manufacturing technology that can break the bottleneck of alloy development and industrial application for aluminum materials. Wire arc additive manufacturing technology originates from traditional arc welding, and both of them use high-energy arc as heat source and metal wires as raw material. The WAAM technology and equipment development, the solidification and solid state phase transformation performance, microstructures, metallurgical defects as well as mechanical property of aluminum alloys were reviewed. The technique prospects of hot wire and multi-wire additive manufacturing, the unique fabrication manner and the exclusive phase transformation microstructure were discussed. The WAAM-specialized approaches to address the issues of poor manufacturing accuracy, serious porosity and cracking, and unsatisfied mechanical property, including fabrication system development, metallurgical defect controlling, alloy composition and microstructure design and heat treatment optimization were proposed. Such proposals are expected to facilitate the rapid development of high-end, customized and distinguished aluminum alloys via WAAM.

Keywords

• wire arc additive manufacturing
• aluminum alloy
• phase transition characteristic
• meta-llurgical defect