Ductility and Buckling Behaviour of Point‐by‐Point Wire Arc Additively Manufactured Steel Bars

Abstract

The wire arc additive manufacturing (WAAM) technology in combination with computational design shows a big potential for realising novel force‐flow optimised and material‐efficient connections. This contribution deals with point‐by‐point WAAM, a material deposition strategy that allows to place material precisely where structurally needed or aesthetically desired. This could be applied, among others, for realising a novel optimised type of steel nodes between custom‐oriented profiles, as they occur in freeform steel‐glass grid‐shells. In this paper, the structural behaviour of robotically fabricated straight WAAM steel bars under uniaxial tensile and compressive loading is discussed. The focus is set on the ductility exhibited by such components as well as on the buckling behaviour observed under compressive loading. Experimental tests were conducted, both under tensile and under compressive loading to assess the influence of the irregular geometry on the structural performance. Furthermore, it was studied to what extent a prediction of the ductile structural behaviour, of the compressive load‐bearing capacity and of the post‐buckling behaviour is possible by finite element simulations. This contribution presents and discusses highlights of the obtained results.