Abstract
Additive manufacturing is considered one of the revolutionary productiontechnologies, and an appropriate deposition path for metal droplets is critical in
additive manufacturing, which contributesto the printing at high quality. Therefore,
optimizing the planning process is of vital importance, and this research proposed
an appropriate method for printing curved shapes to reduce layer surface height
variation and roughness. Depending on various curvatures with internal filling, an
adaptive spacing with angular displacement was determined, in the balancing of
improving dimensional accuracy and reducing material consumption. In addition,
dynamic changes in the droplet energy and the droplet deposition radius at different
release heights were obtained, as a basis for the spacing of neighboring droplets in
the path planning. The components of the printing system for high-melting-point
metals were integrated, and therefore the system operation could be supported in
the compatible software and hardware. Based on the drop-on-demand technique,
two-dimensional curved patterns were printed, and three-dimensional curved
objects with the internal filling were completely manufactured. Compared to
common path planning methods, the result showed the surface flatness was
improved by more than 30% based on the proposed strategies. The proposed
method approximated the curved contours, and the filled rate was close to 90%
in spite of the cross-sectional radius of the printed objects was small, less than 5
mm. The strategies proposed in this research were proven to be effective, laying
the foundation for the practical application of droplet-based manufacturing
technology.
| Date of Award | Jul 2024 |
|---|---|
| Original language | English |
| Awarding Institution |
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| Supervisor | Adam Rushworth (Supervisor), Hao Chen (Supervisor), Guang Li (Supervisor) & Yi Nie (Supervisor) |