A fast simulation method for thermal management in wire arc additive manufacturing repair of a thin-walled structure

Abstract

Ensuring first-time-right on-site repair of critical structures is a key challenge for additive manufacturing (AM)–based repair solutions. Fast thermal simulations are thus needed to plan efficient and error-free AM processes. This paper addresses a fast thermal simulation method for a novel subsea wire arc additive manufacturing (SWAAM) repair procedure. Current commercial finite element (FE) codes for typical welding and AM are computationally expensive and slow. The presented 2D finite difference approach can be used to simulate SWAAM on a damaged plate with around 70 times acceleration compared to real welding times, without the use of parallelization. Although not being able to accurately represent the temperature in close vicinity of the welding torch, the approach shows excellent correspondence with FE simulations and experiments in regions of the plate where the temperature has assumed a distribution that is largely two-dimensional. Compared with FE simulations, the approach is experimentally verified to be accurate to 10 °C within 7 s after the welding torch has passed a point on the plate. Thus, the approach can provide a measure of the global temperature field in a thin-walled structure during repair. The thermal simulation is preceded by a welding path planner, which generates appropriate paths based on slicing of a 3D surface scan of the damage that is to be repaired. Damages to equipment or non-ideal welding conditions are prevented by automatically pausing the welding if the calculated temperature in the path ahead of the welding torch exceeds a predefined interpass temperature limit.