A Literature Review on the Wire and Arc Additive Manufacturing—Welding Systems and Software

Abstract

Wire and arc additive manufacturing (WAAM) is considered to be an economic and efficient technology that is suitable to produce large-scale and ultra-large-scale metallic components. In the past two decades, it has been widely investigated in different fields, such as aerospace, automotive and marine industries. Due to its relatively high deposition rate, material efficiency, and shortened lead time compared to other powder-based additive manufacturing (AM) techniques, wire and arc additive manufacturing (WAAM) has been significantly noticed and adopted by both academic researchers and industrial engineers. In order to summarize the development achievements of wire and arc additive manufacturing (WAAM) in the past few years and outlook the development direction in the coming days, this paper provides an overview of 3D metallic printing by applying it as a deposition method. The review mainly focuses on the current welding systems, software for tool path design, generation, and planning used in wire and arc additive manufacturing (WAAM). In the end, the state of the art and future research on wire and arc additive manufacturing (WAAM) have been prospected.