Study on the effect of fabrication parameters on strength and metallographic structure on direct metal rapid fabrication using arc welding

Abstract

In this research, an arc welding technology has been applied to melt the metal and accumulate layer by layer for the fabrication of three dimensional metallic objects such as the machine parts and molds. In this paper, the effect of fabrication parameters such as electric current, voltage, feed speed of welding torch, and cooling method on the strength of the fabricated objects and its micro metallographic structure were investigated. It is shown that hardness becomes lower as it goes upper part where the cooling rate is low. However, that hardness decrease can be avoided by the control of temperature and the cooling rate of the fabricating product by using the developed cooling device and water cooling.