Role of arc weaving strategies in the fabrication of thick-walled 4043 aluminium alloy components through directed energy deposition process

Arc weaving is a feasible technique for making thick-walled components in the arc-based directed energy deposition process (DED-Arc). In the current study, four different arc weaving strategies, namely, triangle, square, semi -circle, and helix, are used to fabricate the walls. For this, gas tungsten arc welding (GTAW) based DED-Arc set -up using aluminium alloy wire (ER4043) as a filler material is used for different printing strategies. The fabricated walls were investigated for their surface characteristics, microstructure, mechanical properties and residual stress. The weld-bead and wall geometry study revealed that for the same number of layers, the semi-circular arc-weaving strategy had the maximum height among all, with an effective area of 65.77 %. The waviness of the side surface of the walls was maximum for the semi -circle (714 +/- 35 mu m), indicating the semicircle will require almost twice the amount of machining than the helix, square, and triangle in postprocessing operation. The optical micrographs showed that the semi-circular weaving pattern exhibited a coarser gain with thicker grain boundaries with an average grain size of 46.4 +/- 23.7 mu m as compared to other weaving patterns. The triangle weaving pattern demonstrated the smallest grain size among all, resulting in high hardness and superior wear resistance. The residual stress (RS) results revealed that the RS is in tension (22 -24 MPa) in the bottom layers for all the walls and becomes almost zero (-1.5 to -2.5 MPa) in the top layers except for the walls formed by helix strategy. The square weaving strategy strikes a balance between surface characteristics, microstructure, and mechanical properties, making it a highly viable option for thick wall fabrication.