A Novel Additive Manufacturing Method for Spiral Parts

Additive manufacturing (AM) is a promising manufacturing technology. Wire-arc AM (WAAM) has great potential in the metal AM process, and welding based WAAM has its unique advantage. Slicing is an essential work in AM. Currently, most slicing methods are layer-wise, without consideration of the workpiece's geometric and topological characteristics, causing problems such as stair-case effect, anisotropic property and waste of support material, resulting in inaccuracy of finishing part. This paper proposes a spiral slicing method, fully conforming to the part's geometric feature, theoretically eliminating the staircase effect, and obtaining better mechanical property. The slicing direction is along the centroid axis, generating non-uniform thickness layers. The non-uniform layers are realized by adjustment of welding parameters. The whole system is implemented in the RobotStudio®in accordance with characteristics of the welding based WAAM.