Design and Testing of a WAAM Retrofit Kit for Repairing Operations on a Milling Machine

Abstract

Repairing, remanufacturing, and refurbishing high value metal components are crucial to move towards a more sustainable economy. Nowadays, repairing operations on high value parts, such as dies, are generally performed using time-consuming manual approaches that rely on the operator’s expertise. The research idea of this paper is to develop a retrofit kit to provide additive capabilities to an existing milling machine, allowing automatic repairing of components thanks to a fast switch between additive and machining operations without a relevant economic investment such the acquisition of a brand-new machine: the final cost of the solution is lower than 10% with respect to the mean cost of a 5-axis milling machine. The additive technology used in this work is Wire Arc Additive Manufacturing (WAAM) that is characterized by a higher deposition rate and a simpler and cost-effective equipment with respect to other techniques (e.g., laser cladding). The design of the system is illustrated in the paper together with the analysis of the results achieved repairing a test case: a die casting mold made of AISI H13 tool steel.

Development of depositions strategies for edge repair using a WAAM process

“…The welding machine is a Fronius TPS 320i able to perform GMAW in different modes, e.g. Cold Metal Transfer (CMT) and Low Spatter Control (LSC) [11]. Mild steel has been adopted both for substrate (made by S235JR) and wire feedstock (ER70S-6).…”