Strength of manufactured object made by direct metal lamination using arc discharge

Abstract

The tensile strength of the solid structure fabricated by a direct metal lamination under various lamination conditions is examined. The direct metal lamination is a kind of the additive manufacturing process using the arc welding technology; where the molten metal made by the arc discharge is accumulated successively in this process. Combinations of lamination conditions such as welding current, torch feed speed and the cross feed of the torch are explored and the suitable conditions to realize a solid structure without weld defects are clarified. Then it is shown that the laminated modeling object has enough tensile strength compared with the same bulk material. In addition, the welding torch moving direction doesn't affect the strength of the object because the accumulated overlapping beads melt into each other under the suitable condition. © 2013 The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers.