Wire Arc Additive Manufacturing of Stainless Steel 347 Wall for Pressure Vessel Application: Microstructural Performance and Finite Element Analysis of Tensile Test

The goal of this study is to provide functional knowledge on finite element analysis (FEA) of additively manufactured stainless steel (SS) 347 plate fabricated through wire arc additive manufacturing (WAAM) for use in nuclear and pressure vessel application. To overcome the limitations of conventionally fabricated plates, a wall is fabricated using ideal process parameters identified through trial and error experiments. Fabricated wall exhibits a dendritic (columnar and equiaxed) microstructure that enhances tensile strength. The improvement in strength is evident, as the WAAM-processed plate exhibited 559.4 +/- 7.6 MPa; while, the wrought alloy exhibited 524.6 +/- 12 MPa. The increase in strength is attributed to presence of residual delta-ferrite, which is evidenced by increase in ferrite number (FN). FN varied from top to bottom in the range of 5.6 to 5.1. FEA was successfully employed to simulate the tensile test and predicted outcomes showed an error percentage of less than 1%.