Electromagnetically confined weld-based additive manufacturing

Due to the cost advantage, weld-based Additive Manufacturing (AM) is suitable for directly fabricating large metallic parts. One of challenges for weld-based Additive Manufacturing is to build overhanging structure or tilt structure at a large slant angle, because liquid metal on the boundary would flow down by gravity due to lack of sufficient support. In the present work, electromagnetically confined weld-based Additive Manufacturing is developed to solve this problem. In the process, liquid metal is confined and semi-levitated by the Lorentz force exerted by magnetic field and thus the flow of liquid metal is restricted. Experiments and numerical simulations are performed to investigate the effect mechanism of electromagnetic confinement. Experimental results verify that the flow-down or collapse of liquid metal is impeded by electromagnetic confinement. With specific welding parameters, the maximum tilt angle of successful building increases from 50 degrees to 60 degrees when imposing electromagnetic confinement. (C) 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.