Open AccessDECOMPOSITION ALGORITHM FOR TOOL PATH PLANNING FOR WIRE-ARC ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING
Author(s) -
Lam M. Nguyen,
Johannes Buhl,
Markus� Bambach
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
journal of machine engineering
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.588
H-Index - 7
eISSN - 2391-8071
pISSN - 1895-7595
DOI - 10.5604/01.3001.0010.8827
Subject(s) - slicing , cad , computer science , motion planning , process (computing) , engineering drawing , decomposition , computer aided design , path (computing) , arc (geometry) , algorithm , computer aided manufacturing , mechanical engineering , robot , engineering , artificial intelligence , computer graphics (images) , ecology , biology , programming language , operating system
Three-axis machines are limited in the production of geometrical features in powder-bed additive manufacturing processes. In case of overhangs, support material has to be added due to the nature of the process, which causes some disadvantages. Robot-based wire-arc additive manufacturing (WAAM) is able to fabricate overhangs without adding support material. Hence, build time, waste of material, and post-processing might be reduced considerably. In order to make full use of multi-axis advantages, slicing strategies are needed. To this end, the CAD (computer-aided design) model of the part to be built is first partitioned into sub-parts, and for each sub-part, an individual build direction is identified. Path planning for these sub-parts by slicing then enables to produce the parts. This study presents a heuristic method to deal with the decomposition of CAD models and build direction identification for sub-entities. The geometric data of two adjacent slices are analyzed to construct centroidal axes. These centroidal axes are used to navigate the slicing and building processes. A case study and experiments are presented to exemplify the algorithm.