Abstract:
Wire + Arc Additive Manufacturing (WAAM) has become a crucial asset for industrial
manufacturing in the field of medium to large metallic deposition thanks to its high-rate
deposition of various metals, its low-cost equipment and a potentially unlimited build
volume. A key element for commercial deployment is to develop an intuitive path planning software, which can determine the optimal deposition strategy, whilst respecting
WAAM’s constraints inherent to arc welding deposition.
Traditional approaches to additive manufacturing path planning are often derived from
CNC machining, but these strategies are incompatible with some fundamental characteristics of WAAM. For this reason, the present work aims to investigate a path planning solution entirely focused on the WAAM requirements. The architecture of a Path Generator
Framework for WAAM is, thus, first introduced to offer complete freedom of path planning development all along this study. To validate the developed framework, a feature-
based approach is presented: this allows the fast and efficient deployment of the WAAM
technology for a limited range of geometric features and sets up the basis of path planning
for WAAM. Then, a more flexible solution called Modular Path Planning is introduced to
incorporate the modularity of feature-based design into the traditional layer-by-layer build
strategy. By assisting the user in dividing each layer into individual deposition sections,
this method enables users to adapt the path strategy to the targeted geometry allowing the
construction of a wide variety of complex geometries. Finally, a deep learning solution
called DeepWAAM is proposed to reach, in the future, a fully automated path planning
solution for WAAM by automatically dividing build layers into deposition sections with
no need for user intervention.
