A PRELIMINARY STUDY OF DEPOSITION RATE, MATERIAL PROPERTY AND STABILITY OF WAAM STAINLESS STEEL PLATES

Wire arc additive manufacturing (WAAM) has significant potential to produce freeform, but structurally efficient geometries out of stainless steel, for use in the construction industry, however, there is currently no standardisation of the manufacturing parameters used to produce WAAM structures. This paper discusses an experimental programme carried out on WAAM 316L stainless steel plated structures to assess the effects of the deposition rate, which is directly associated with productivity. This programme comprises tensile tests on coupons extracted along different printing directions, geometric imperfection measurement (including surface roughness, waviness and overall out -of-straightness), and stub column tests designed to determine the local stability of unstiffened plates manufactured with different deposition rates. The applicability of current Eurocode design rules for stainless steel structures, including the ductility requirements and effective width equations, have been assessed based on the obtained experimental data.