A Fuzzy CRITIC and Fuzzy WASPAS-Based Integrated Approach for Wire Arc Additive Manufacturing (WAAM) Technique Selection

Wire arc additive manufacturing (WAAM) is a comparatively new wire-based technology used to produce complex products that cannot be made using traditional manufacturing methods. Selecting the best WAAM technique based on product specifications, manufacturability and functionality is a critical issue. In this paper, an attempt is made to evaluate different WAAM techniques using a hybrid multi-criteria decision-making technique. The objective of the proposed work is to demonstrate the weights and ranking of different WAAM techniques under the novel idea of integrated fuzzy CRITIC and fuzzy WASPAS. Gas metal arc welding (GMAW), double electrode GMAW (DE-GMAW), gas tungsten arc welding (GTAW), plasma arc welding-based WAAM (PAW-AM), and electron beam-based WAAM (EBM-AM) are considered as alternatives. Geometrical features, material supply, mechanical and thermal properties, operational characteristics, and economic challenges are considered as main criteria. Further, under each main criterion, sub-criteria are considered. The weights of the main criteria and sub-criteria are obtained by fuzzy CRITIC (criteria importance through inter-criteria correlation). With the help of these weights, the alternatives are ranked by fuzzy WASPAS (weighted aggregated sum-product assessment) for finding the most suitable technique. From the findings of this research, it is concluded that electron beam-based WAAM (EBM-AM) is preferable as per the chosen criteria type. Moreover, the consistency of the hybrid MCDM model has been verified using sensitivity analysis.