Control of forming process of truss structure based on cold metal transition technology
ISSN: 1355-2546
Article publication date: 6 September 2021
Issue publication date: 26 January 2022
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to study the wire and arc additive manufacturing (WAAM) method and path planning algorithm of truss structure parts, to realize the collision-free rapid prototyping of truss structures with complex characteristics.
Design/methodology/approach
First, a point-by-point stacking strategy is proposed based on the spot-welding mode of cold metal transfer welding technology. A force analysis model of the droplet is established, which can be used to adjust the posture of the welding torch and solve the collapse problem in the WAAM process of the truss structure. The collision detection model is developed to calculate the interference size between the truss structure and the welding torch, which is used to control the offset of the welding torch. Finally, the ant colony algorithm has been used to optimize the moving path of welding torch between truss with considering the algorithm efficiency and collision avoiding and the efficiency of the algorithm is improved by discretizing the three-dimensional workspace.
Findings
A series of experiments were conducted to prove the validity of the proposed methods. The results show that the wire feeding speed, welding speed are the important parameters for controlling the WAAM process of truss parts. The inclination angle of the welding torch has an important influence on the forming quality of the truss.
Originality/value
The force analysis model of truss structure in the WAAM process is established to ensure the forming quality and a collision-free path planning algorithm is proposed to improve forming efficiency.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
Funding: This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant no. 51705361), the Tianjin Science and technology project (Grant no. 20YDTPJC00780); the Tianjin “project + team” key training project (Grant no. XC202053); the Key Technologies R&D Program of Tianjin (Grant no. 19YFZCGX00870), Tianjin Municipal Education Commission Scientific Research Project (2019KJ011).
Citation
Wang, T., Zhou, X. and Zhang, H. (2022), "Control of forming process of truss structure based on cold metal transition technology", Rapid Prototyping Journal, Vol. 28 No. 2, pp. 204-215. https://doi.org/10.1108/RPJ-12-2020-0314
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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