CAD-to-Print Strategy for Gas Metal Arc Directed Energy Deposition

Harnessing between a computer-aided design (CAD) and the actual printing of a part is by far the most arduous task for robotic gas metal arc directed energy deposition (GMA-DED). The generation of a suitable scanning strategy to deposit overlapping tracks and successive layers is currently not supported by an organized single source. Three easy-to-use CAD-to-Print approaches- point-based, feature-based and drawing-based- are presented here utilizing the open-source software for robotic GMA-DED. The point-based approach involves the discretization of the CAD model into a set of target points and suitable for linear paths and regular geometry. The feature-based approach involves the generation of the robot scan path by slicing of the CAD model. It can consider both regular and irregular geometries but suitable for linear paths only. The drawing-based approach involves the robot scan paths drawn along the contours of the CAD model and is flexible for both linear and non-linear scanning paths. Although all the three approaches require user intervention, they have the potential for automation.