Metal Additive Manufacturing Conference - MAMC 2023

Wire-based DED/LMD promises some unique advantages compared to powder-based DED. Most relevant are the low cost of the starting material and the reduced health and safety risks. In the recent years, wire DED was mainly used for R&D purposes. In this study, however, we will present the adoption of wire DED to industrial requirements using Inconel 625 and 718 materials. By optimizing the system hardware and processes, deposition rates up to 3 kg/h were achieved using wire diameters up to 1.6 mm. Using direct diode lasers, a maximum power of 6 kW could be used. By carefully adjusting process parameters and build strategies, very smooth surfaces could be achieved. Build height deviations which often occur at edges or when the deposition direction is changed could be reduced to a minimum in the same manner. A special focus was on maximum process stability and continuous operation. A detailed description of individual measures to achieve this will be presented. Furthermore, we will compare industrial powder based and wire-based processes with respect to material performance, cost/throughput, reproducibility, and ease of use. Finally, we will present examples for wire-based DED machine systems and CAM based toolpath generation for wire processes.