A Progressive Review on Wire Arc Additive Manufacturing: Mechanical Properties, Metallurgical and Defect Analysis

Wire arc additive manufacturing (WAAM) has confirmed its flexibility in meeting the mid- to large-scale component production requirements for the engineering and related sectors. Because of mechanical limitations such as under-matched mechanical properties, the existence of significant residual stresses and the necessary post-deposition activity of the formed component, WAAM currently cannot be used as a fully-fledged manufacturing process. The entire article offers an overview of the WAAM technology including one with a succinct description of the WAAM field history, situation, benefits and challenges. Emphasis has been given, particularly on the measures to limit porosity, tensile strength, microstructural inspections and other important advances in the field of WAAM. The main advantages of WAAM are the integration of the manufacturing process, the fair degree of design flexibility, as well as the resulting optimization ability. Owing to feasibility of large-scale composite materials of significantly higher deposition rates, considerable progress has been made in the setting of the WAAM process. An acceptable efficient heat treatment has been integrated to help reduce defects within the WAAM process and also to obtain the new options that are effective. The integration of materials and the production methods for manufacturing of defect-free and technically feasible deposited parts remains a vital step in the future.

Keywords: Arc stability, Compression, Corrosion, Deposition rate, ECT, GMAW-AM, GTAW-AM, Grain size, Hybrid AM, Impedance, Inter layer, PAW-AM, PDP, Porosity, Post deposition heating, SEM, Tensile, Tomography, WAAM, XRD.