A PROPELLER BLADE MANUFACTURING BY HYBRID ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING SYSTEM

Hybrid Additive Manufacturing (Hybrid-AM) describes multi-operational or multi-functional additive manufacturing systems. In industry, the increasing tendency in applications of Hybrid-AM brings up the challenge of improving novel methods for the manufacturing of new or hybrid parts. Hybrid AM can produce fully functional assemblies without any assembly operation. In this study, the hybrid additive manufacturing system means that an object is to be designed partly made from prefabricated or off-the-shelf parts and added by the wire arc additive manufacturing (WAAM) process. For this purpose, a prototype Hybrid-AM system using the pulsed TIG-Wire-Arc technique was designed and constructed. The constructed The shaped metal deposition (SMD) system has three drivers on the x, y, and z-axes and an additional rotary driver (fourth axis). Using the Hybrid-AM machine the wire form material can be deposited on an existing primitive profile i.e., a rod, pipe, a profile, or any 3D surfaces with reducing production time. In this way, spiral-shaped features or twisted blade shapes can be added to cylindrical parts. In this study, a stainless- steel propeller blade was deposited on a pipe by using the developed prototype Hybrid AM machine. A non-planar toolpath was used to deposition the subsequent layers and the surface of the propeller blade was finished using 4-axis CNC machining.

A PROPELLER BLADE MANUFACTURING BY HYBRID ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING SYSTEM

Hybrid Additive Manufacturing (Hybrid-AM) describes multi-operational or multi-functional additive manufacturing systems. In industry, the increasing tendency in applications of Hybrid-AM brings up the challenge of improving novel methods for the manufacturing of new or hybrid parts. Hybrid AM can produce fully functional assemblies without any assembly operation. In this study, the hybrid additive manufacturing system means that an object is to be designed partly made from prefabricated or off-the-shelf parts and added by the WAAM process. For this purpose, a prototype Hybrid-AM system using the pulsed TIG-Wire-Arc technique was designed and constructed. The constructed SMD system has three drivers on the x, y, and z-axes and an additional rotary driver (fourth axis). Using the Hybrid-AM machine the wire form material can be deposited on an existing primitive profile i.e., a rod, pipe, a profile, or any 3D surfaces with reducing production time. In this way, spiral-shaped features or twisted blade shapes can be added to cylindrical parts. In this study, a stainless- steel propeller blade was deposited on a pipe by using the developed prototype Hybrid AM machine. A non-planar toolpath was used to deposition the subsequent layers and the surface of the propeller blade was finished using 4-axis CNC machining.

___

  • Gebhardt A., Understanding Additive Manufacturing. Carl Hanser Verlag GmbH & Co. KG, 2011.
  • Antonysamy A.A., "Microstructure, Texture and Mechanical Property Evolution during Additive Manufacturing of Ti6Al4V Alloy for Aerospace Applications", [Thesis]. Manchester, UK: The University of Manchester; 2012., 2012.
  • Buckner M.A., Love L.J., "Automating and accelerating the additive manufacturing design process with multi-objective constrained evolutionary optimization and HPC/cloud computing", in FIIW 2012 - 2012 Future of Instrumentation International Workshop Proceedings, Pages 51–54, 2012.
  • Mahamood R., Akinlabi E., Shukla M., Pityana S., "Laser metal deposition of Ti6Al4V: A study on the effect of laser power on microstructure and microhardness", 2013.
  • Klahn C., Leutenecker B., Meboldt M., "Design for additive manufacturing - Supporting the substitution of components in series products", in Procedia CIRP, Volume 21, Pages 138–143, 2014.
  • Wang H., Kovacevic R., "Rapid prototyping based on variable polarity gas tungsten arc welding for a 5356 aluminium alloy", Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part B: Journal of Engineering Manufacture, Volume 215, Issue 11, 2001.
  • Mehnen J., Ding J., Lockett H., Kazanas P., "Design forwire and arc additive layermanufacture", in Global Product Development - Proceedings of the 20th CIRP Design Conference, Pages 721–727, 2011.
  • Bonaccorso F., Cantelli L., Muscato G., "An arc welding robot control for a shaped metal deposition plant: Modular software interface and sensors", IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics, Volume 58, Issue 8, 2011.
  • Muscato G., Spampinato G., Cantelli L., "A closed loop welding controller for a rapid manufacturing process", in 2008 IEEE International Conference on Emerging Technologies and Factory Automation, Pages 1080–1083, 2008.
  • Merz R., Ramaswami, Terk K., Weiss M., "Shape Deposition Manufacturing", The Solid Freeform Fabrication Symposium, 1994.
  • Skiba T., Baufeld B., Van Der Biest O., "Microstructure and mechanical properties of stainless steel component manufactured by shaped metal deposition", ISIJ International, Volume 49, Issue 10, 2009.
  • Baufeld B., Van Der Biest O., "Mechanical properties of Ti-6Al-4V specimens produced by shaped metal deposition", Science and Technology of Advanced Materials, Volume 10, Issue 1, 2009.
  • Baufeld B., Biest O. van der, Gault R., Ridgway K., "Manufacturing Ti-6Al-4V Components by Shaped Metal Deposition: Microstructure and Mechanical Properties", IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering, Volume 26, Issue 1, 2011.
  • Baufeld B., Biest O. Van der, Gault R., "Additive manufacturing of Ti-6Al-4V components by shaped metal deposition: Microstructure and mechanical properties", Materials and Design, Volume 31, Issue SUPPL. 1, 2010.
  • Clark D., Bache M.R., Whittaker M.T., "Shaped metal deposition of a nickel alloy for aero engine applications", Journal of Materials Processing Technology, Volume 203, Issue 1–3, 2008.
  • Baufeld B., "Mechanical properties of INCONEL 718 parts manufactured by shaped metal deposition (SMD)", Journal of Materials Engineering and Performance, Volume 21, Issue 7, 2012.
  • Geng H., Xiong J., Huang D., Lin X., Li J., "A prediction model of layer geometrical size in wire and arc additive manufacture using response surface methodology", International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology, Volume 93, Issue 1–4, 2017.
  • Li F., Chen S., Shi J., Zhao Y., "In-process control of distortion in wire and arc additive manufacturing based on a flexible multi-point support fixture", Science and Technology of Welding and Joining, Volume 24, Issue 1, 2019.
  • Panchagnula J.S., Simhambhatla S., "Manufacture of complex thin-walled metallic objects using weld-deposition based additive manufacturing", Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing, Volume 49, 2018.
  • Williams S.W., Martina F., Addison A.C., Ding J., Pardal G., Colegrove P., "Wire + Arc additive manufacturing", Materials Science and Technology (United Kingdom), Volume 32, Issue 7, 2016.
  • Ding Y., Akbari M., Kovacevic R., "Process planning for laser wire-feed metal additive manufacturing system", International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology, Volume 95, Issue 1–4, 2018.
  • He T., Yu S., Shi Y., Dai Y., "High-accuracy and high-performance WAAM propeller manufacture by cylindrical surface slicing method", International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology, Volume 105, Issue 11, 2019.
  • Atalay Y., "Hybrid Additive Manufacturing by Shaped Metal Deposition", Gaziantep University, 2020.