Addilan announces stabilised process for WAAM additive manufacturing

Addilan, a specialised provider of additive manufacturing, has released research results that demonstrate the stability of its Wire Arc Additive Manufacturing (WAAM) process for metals including titanium, steel alloys, nickel superalloys, invar and aluminium.

Validated by laboratory results from Tecnalia, WAAM manufacturing stability guarantees mechanical properties for high deposition additive processes used by the most demanding industries including aerospace, oil & gas, naval and railway.

“For companies interested in end-to-end digital manufacturing, flexibility in manufacturing, production automation and industry 4.0, WAAM is one of the best value propositions for final and replacement part production,” said Amagoia Paskual, CEO, Addilan. “We can now customise additive manufacturing solutions and build components using different materials, on the same machine, while ensuring the stability and integrity of each part.”

Addilan’s Wire Arc Additive Manufacturing machine is capable of printing medium-to-large complex parts while reducing raw material consumption, and lead-time while guaranteeing the quality, repeatability and traceability of each part.Using a proprietary CNC, Addilan builds custom parts and designs by depositing material layer upon layer. A specialist in wire arc additive manufacturing, Addilan can apply different electric arc welding technologies, as an energy source to wire feedstock to produce fully dense metal parts.

“Our research focused on analysing material characteristics unique to wire arc welding in order to better understand how to stabilise the process and ensure the quality and repeatability of key process parameters,” said Alfredo Suárez, head of WAAM at Tecnalia Research and Innovation.

Research results compared additive metal manufacturing to block, foundry and forging measuring: Oxygen level (for Ti), Fatigue life, Fracture toughness, Tensile strength, Elongation at break, Microstructure composition, Charpy.

Addilan announced the first commercial WAAM plasma technology machine at Formnext 2018. This machine was designed to meet high demands from the aerospace industry for titanium parts, featuring a WAAM Plasma Torch and an Inert Chamber. Addilan is actively conducting studies in collaboration with customers to identify the best competitive additive manufacturing alternative within other key industries.

Addilan will be discussing the results of their research at Formnext in Frankfurt from November 19-22, at hall 12.0, booth #B.82.