Deposition time and thermal cycles of fabricating thin-wall steel parts by double electrode gmaw based additive manufacturing

The deposition time for fabricating the thin-wall part as well as the peak temperature of the substrate during the process was analyzed in the double electrode gas metal arc welding (DE-GMAW) based additive manufacturing (AM). The total deposition time and the interlayer idle time of the manufacturing process decreased with the increasing of the bypass current under the same interlayer temperature and the same deposition rate. The thermal cycling curves illustrated that the peak temperature of the substrate was lower in the DE-GMAW base AM under the same conditions. When depositing the thin-wall parts, the DE-GMAW based AM can reduce the heat input to the substrate and improve the fabrication efficiency, compared with the GMAW based AM.