Weld morphology, microstructure evolution, and mechanical properties of laser beam welding of wire arc additive manufactured Al-Cu substrate

Abstract

Additive manufacturing (AM) cannot meet the manufacturing requirements of speci c large structures, so use the welding method to joint the small size parts of AM to solve the problem. In work, the laser weld 3mm thick samples cut from WAAM block under different laser powers and welding directions to explore the feasibility of technology. The properties evolution, and weldability of the laser-welded wire arc additive manufactured Al-Cu alloy joints are investigated. The results indicate that the wire arc additive manufactured Al-Cu alloy has excellent laser weldability without apparent detection. The microstructures of the laser-welded joints consist of columnar grains, dendrites and ne equiaxed grains. The 3500 W laser power joint has higher tensile strength and elongation than other laser powers, reaching 203.48 MPa, 4.13%. Compared with the different welding direction joints, "0°and 0°" has the higher tensile strength and elongation, reaching 180.77 MPa, 2.40%. The microstructures have a weak effect, but the anisotropy plays a signi cant role in the tensile properties. This study has demonstrated that it is possible to laser-welded WAAM samples, and provide solutions that AM technology di cultly produces large size parts.

A Review on the Weldability of Additively Manufactured Aluminium Parts by Fusion and Solid-State Welding Processes

“…As mentioned before, to the best knowledge of the authors, there is only one study evaluating the weldability of Al parts manufactured by WAAM. In this study, Shi et al [41] observed the good weldability of WAAM-manufactured 2319 Al alloy, by realising a nearly-free of defects LBW joint. The microstructures of the laser-welded joint consisted of columnar and fine equiaxed grains.…”

“…Several researchers have evaluated the use of the LBW process alone for additive-manufactured Al alloys [36,[38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50]. The general and consistent results that porosity is the main defect in these welds [36,[38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50]. According to Emmelm [38], pores are formed during the welding process of aluminium alloys by a known as heterogeneous nucleation.…”

“…Several researchers have evaluated the use of the LBW process alone for welding additive-manufactured Al alloys [36,[38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50]. The general and consistent results indicate that porosity is the main defect in these welds [36,[38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50]. According to Emmelmann et al [38], pores are formed during the welding process of aluminium alloys by a process known as heterogeneous nucleation.…”

“…In the literature, only one study evaluated the applicability of the LBW welding process to Al plates manufactured by WAAM [41], which will be discussed in the next paragraphs.…”

Fatigue Behavior of Rotary Friction Welding of Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene and Polycarbonate Dissimilar Materials

“…It was found that the compressive stress on the welding tool was at the back side and the tensile stress on the welding tool was at the front side. Shi et al [ 10 ] employed laser welding to join the additive manufactured parts. The results indicated that the weld joint of the Al–Cu alloy was nearly free of defects.…”