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Metal Additive Manufacturing (MAM) is one of the innovative industrial technologies of the last decade, which presents some benefits as compared to traditional manufacturing techniques. MAM is faster, less expensive, and allow the manufacturing of large, complex components than casting, foundry etc. Understanding the influence of process parameters on the deposited matter and material characteristics is essential for the manufacturing of industrial parts. Current research concentrates on the impact of parameters on the fabricated structure geometry, microstructure and mechanical properties. There are limited number of studies, that focus on the possibility of Wire Feed Speed (WFS) parameter variation during deposition. In this work, a series of trials were realised with Cold Metal Transfer. The results showed that the quantity of material deposited was lesser than the theoretical value. The variation obtained was explained by the difference between the inputted WFS on the generator and the actual WFS output. Hence, the result on the influence of the variation of WFS on bead geometry was applied to a thermofluid model with Ti-6Al-4V alloy to confirm the sensitivity of this parameter in the quantity and geometry of the material deposited. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Additive manufacturing is an essential solution in the production of parts. Model slicing is an important step of the 3D printing process. The slicing of the layers is the core part of the additive manufacturing because it transforms the 3D model to a 2D profile layer for the printer to manufacture. A novel machine architecture deposits with a helical path. The helical architecture provides a continuous rotation that allows printing continuously without any interruption. Therefore there are no more starting and ending point at each layer. This paper proposes a slicing method compatible with this type of machine. Continuous printing is made as a function of z-level, so at each angle of rotation, the level of z will be incremented. Finally, these disks can be combined as one image to be sent to the ink-jet as a continuous printing. To illustrate this novel slicing methodology a model is sliced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Additive manufacturing has been relying on conventional machinery architecture. Conventionally, the architecture used is a Cartesian set-up. The X-Y-Z axis move independently to move the tool on the X-Y plan and increment the Z-axis when the layer is finished. The machine architecture in this paper simplifies the design by constraining the machine to have solely one-degree of freedom. One degree of freedom is also known as a helix linkage. If individually controlled tools are placed all along the rotating arm, then this movement allows an opportunity to deposit material in a single sweeping motion. To increase furthermore the output, multiple arms can be added at a fixed angle. Finally, because of the predictive motion, multiple helix machines can be synchronized to create collaboratively a bigger part. This type of manufacturing process has potential applications in binder jetting, material jetting, and selective laser sintering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]