Investigation of In Situ Vibration During Wire and Arc Additive Manufacturing

Wire and arc additive manufacturing (WAAM) is becoming a promising technique due to its high deposition rate and low cost. However, WAAM faces challenges of coarse grains. In this study, a novel in situ vibration method was proposed to suppress these imperfections of WAAM. Temperature and vibration distributions were explored first, and the optimized parameters were utilized for manufacturing low-carbon steel parts. The results revealed that after the vibration, the average grain size in fine grain zone was reduced from 9.8 to 7.1 μm, and that in coarse grain zone was declined from 10.6 to 7.4 μm, respectively. No large deformation occurred due to the low temperature. Grain refining was attributed to more dendrite fragments induced by excessive stress at the roots of dendrites. The refined grains enhanced mechanical strength of the parts in both X and Z directions and improved the average hardness. After the vibration, the ultimate tensile strength and yield strength were increased to 522.5 and 395 MPa, which represented an increase of 10% and 13.8%, respectively. The average hardness was improved to 163 HV, which was an increase of 10.1%.