Open this publication in new window or tab >>2012 (English)In: Optics and lasers in engineering, ISSN 0143-8166, E-ISSN 1873-0302, Vol. 50, no 9, p. 1230-1241Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
Laser Metal-wire Deposition is an additive manufacturing technique for solid freeform fabrication of fully dense metal structures. The technique is based on robotized laser welding and wire filler material, and the structures are built up layer by layer. The deposition process is, however, sensitive to disturbances and thus requires continuous monitoring and adjustments. In this work a 3D scanning system is developed and integrated with the robot control system for automatic in-process control of the deposition. The goal is to ensure stable deposition, by means of choosing a correct offset of the robot in the vertical direction, and obtaining a flat surface, for each deposited layer. The deviations in the layer height are compensated by controlling the wire feed rate on next deposition layer, based on the 3D scanned data, by means of iterative learning control. The system is tested through deposition of bosses, which is expected to be a typical application for this technique in the manufacture of jet engine components. The results show that iterative learning control including 3D scanning is a suitable method for automatic deposition of such structures. This paper presents the equipment, the control strategy and demonstrates the proposed approach with practical experiments.
Keywords
Laser metal deposition; Additive layer manufacturing; Metal wire; Iterative learning control; 3D scanning
National Category
Robotics Control Engineering
Research subject
ENGINEERING, Manufacturing and materials engineering
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:hv:diva-4203 (URN)10.1016/j.optlaseng.2012.03.016 (DOI)000305773200008 ()2-s2.0-84861592745 (Scopus ID)
2012-03-142012-03-142020-04-01Bibliographically approved