Reference geometries and indicators for the process window development of wire Directed Energy Deposition

Abstract

The industrial interest for Directed Energy Deposition (DED) processes increases; however, intensive experimental work is needed for the determination of process inputs each time a new material and machine are investigated, leading to waste of time and resources. Therefore, this work presents a structured way of determining the values of key process parameters based on reference geometries such as single tracks, thin walls, overlapping tracks and complex geometries as well as metrological responses from where acceptance thresholds are developed. In the present study, the methodology is implemented in a wire laser-based DED process; the working material is stainless steel AISI316L while monitoring devices that capture the melt pool features, the over-built and finally the process performance are retrofitted to accelerate the transformation of process data to meaningful information and process knowledge.