Modelling wire-arc-additive manufacturing for joining by forming applications

This work examines material deposition through wire-arc additive manufacturing (WAAM) to create functional elements on conventional wrought sheets, which are subsequently plastically deformed using conventional metal forming operations. The investigation employed finite element modelling to address material nonlinearities caused by heating and cooling cycles during the layer-by-layer material deposition process and accounted for the interchangeable boundary conditions caused by the newly activated mesh elements triggered by the moving heat source and the geometric nonlinearities resulting from thermal-induced distortions during material deposition and unclamping. Experiments were carried out to produce the features and measure the resulting distortion of the final parts using two different clamping systems. An application is provided in which the features are utilized to create rivets for fabricating form-closed mechanical interlocks in hybrid electrical busbar joints. This example demonstrates the usefulness of new hybrid manufacturing routes combining wire-arc additive manufacturing with metal forming for joining by forming applications.