Abstract
The Additive Manufacturing Excavator (AME) contained several key components that were 3D printed at The Manufacturing Demonstration Facility (MDF) of Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL); it was presented at and performed a live demonstration for the CONEXPO 2017 exhibition in Las Vegas, Nevada in March of 2017. This paper presents challenges in building functional, large-scale metal parts based on a case study of the excavator. The excavator's metal arm was 3D printed using a modified Wolf Robotics automated metal inert gas (MIG) welding cell. Tasks included designing a new type of slicer for the metal additive manufacturing (AM) process, integrating the slicing software with the Wolf Robotics system, developing the deposition process, characterizing geometric features and material properties, managing heat, designing mechanical components for metal AM, and developing a machining approach to achieve the final part. Two fully functional excavator arms were printed and machined. Integrated hydraulics passageways that also served as structural stiffeners were included in the build for demonstration purposes. As a direct result of this project, Wolf Robotics is now working towards a commercially available large-scale metal AM system.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages | 2024-2033 |
| Number of pages | 10 |
| State | Published - 2020 |
| Event | 28th Annual International Solid Freeform Fabrication Symposium - An Additive Manufacturing Conference, SFF 2017 - Austin, United States Duration: Aug 7 2017 → Aug 9 2017 |
Conference
| Conference | 28th Annual International Solid Freeform Fabrication Symposium - An Additive Manufacturing Conference, SFF 2017 |
|---|---|
| Country/Territory | United States |
| City | Austin |
| Period | 08/7/17 → 08/9/17 |
Funding
This manuscript has been authored by UT-Battelle, LLC under Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725 with the U.S. Department of Energy. The United States Government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the United States Government retains a non-exclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, world-wide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for United States Government purposes. The Department of Energy will provide public access to these results of federally sponsored research in accordance with the DOE Public Access Plan (http://energy.gov/downloads/doe-public-access-plan). This material is based upon work supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy, Advanced Manufacturing Office, under contract number DE-AC05-00OR22725. This manuscript has been authored by UT-Battelle, LLC under Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725 with the U.S. Department of Energy. The United States Government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the United States Government retains a non-exclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, world-wide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for United States Government purposes. The Department of Energy will provide public access to these results of federally sponsored research in accordance with the DOE Public Access Plan (http://energy.gov/downloads/doe-public-access-plan).
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| DOE Public Access Plan | |
| United States Government | |
| U.S. Department of Energy | |
| Advanced Manufacturing Office | DE-AC05-00OR22725 |
| Office of Science | |
| Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy |
