<p>Metal based additive manufacturing has been rapidly emerging within the past decade as a useful but costly way to produce metal components with intricate and complex designs, which otherwise could not be achieved through subtractive manufacturing. Creating a mechanism to mount welding equipment to easily accessible robotic arms will eliminate the need for costly additive manufacturing welding machinery and make WAAM more accessible. This report will cover the design and experimentation of a 3D Printed universal robotic end effector to allow for any standard MIG welding gun to be used as a WAAM additive manufacturing platform. The designed effector has proved its versatility by accommodating various welding guns for the WAAM welding process. Securing bands allow for adjustable mounting of various welding equipment onto the end effector while still keeping the welding gun trigger and pneumatic actuator aligned. Testing was conducted to measure the actual welding wire feed rates and match this with actual measured movement speed of the robot. Test welds were successfully completed. Future work includes full demonstration of additive processes.&nbsp;</p>

Design and Testing of Wire Arc Additive Manufacturing (Waam) End Effector

Paper Proceedings: https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/MSEC/MSEC2021/volume/85062

2021 International Manufacturing Science and Engineering Conference (MSEC2021)

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