Thermal simulation of Al alloy developed by wire arc additive manufacturing using finite element analysis

Wire Arc Additive Manufacturing (WAAM) is a direct energy deposition (DED) technology which utilizes electric arc as a heat source and feedstock as metal wire. It has the highest deposition rate with less material consumption. Having low melting efficiency, heat input is high which can lead to thermal distortion and residual stress. Thermal management can mitigate heat accumulation. In the present work, thermal simulation of 3-D geometry using finite element analysis has been done to predict the thermal behavior of WAAM fabricated Aluminum part by ANSYS 2021 R2 software. The wire and substrate used were Al 5183 and AA 6061 T6 respectively owing to having greater thermal properties. Temperature profile and heat flux distribution for substrate have been analyzed using Goldak heat source model. It has been found that at the end of simulation, the topmost layer of weld bead achieved temperature of about 437 °C and substrate reached about 250 ℃. The minimum and maximum heat flux were found as 0.418 W/mm² and 2.932 W/mm² respectively. It has been observed that the temperature of substrate started increasing slowly near the bead deposition area but at the end of simulation, the temperature near weld bead became high. At the same time, surface temperature got reduced. Lower layer of the weld bead got a certain time to get cooled. Heat dissipation was high as Aluminum has high thermal conductivity which maintained the uniform temperature distribution throughout the bead. This simulation will help to predict the thermal behavior and analysis of components developed by WAAM process.