Hybrid additive manufacturing by shaped metal deposition

In this thesis, a study on Shaped Metal Deposition (SMD) technique which is one of additive manufacturing methods was presented. The study was related to experimental investigation and creation of Hybrid Additive Manufacturing (Hybrid AM) by using SMD machine. In the Hybrid AM method, instead of removing the material, products are manufactured by adding a layer upon layer in order to the material has a near net or net shape of the full geometry. Thus, the final shape of the products can be produced by using less material, and hybrid parts can be easily produced by this method. Hybrid AM can produce fully functional assemblies without any assembly operation. However, Hybrid AM describes multi-operational or multi-functional additive manufacturing systems. In industry, the increasing tendency in applications of Hybrid AM brings up the challenge of improving novel methods for the manufacturing of new or hybrid parts. A special care is essential for the intended manufacturing for SMD to get the output at its optimum. In this study, a prototype hybrid SMD system with using pulsed TIG-Wire-Arc technique was designed and constructed. The constructed SMD system has three drivers on x, y and z axis and an additional rotary driver (fourth axis). The Hybrid AM machine was designed and constructed in such a way that the material can be deposited on an existing object e.g. a rod, pipe, a profile or any 3D surfaces. This may reduce production time if a primitive profile is used as the substrate. By this way spiral shaped features or twisted blade shapes can be added on cylindrical parts. The temperature distribution, overhang angle, microstructure and hardness measurements of the printed parts that are produced by this system, were investigated experimentally. Key Words: Hybrid Additive Manufacturing, Shaped Metal Deposition, TIG-Wire Technique.