Metal additive manufacturing by CMT 2025-2027

Metal additive manufacturing is an emerging technique used in the aerospace industry and medical research. The cold metal transfer welding technique is a technique derived from additive manufacturing that uses wire as an arc source, developed by Fronius an Austrian company. The latter generates very low Energy contributions compared to other technics. However, the final shape of manufactured parts is similar to that of the foundry. A thermochemical treatment (cementation and nitriding) either of the surface or inside is thus necessary. This project focuses on printing CMT metal parts for various metals and substrates, creating many metallic and physical phenomena that we need to study and analyze. Among these phenomena are diffusion, intermetallic phases, phase interface changes, and changes in mechanical properties, and on the other hand, the use of CMT for loading and grinding the surfaces of defective parts. The improvement of surfaces through thermal and thermochemical treatments, such as carburization and nitriding.

Therefore, our project consists of:

The resolution of industrial problems based on the exceptional options offered by the CMT technique, especially between steels, aluminum alloys, and other materials. The attempt to manufacture the filler material and achieve our independence in raw materials. Presentation to the socio-economic sector of reliable solutions and to the scientific sector of promising research areas. The morphological, physicochemical, and mechanical characterization of the parts produced will be conducted using metallographic optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), atomic force microscope (AFM), identification of the phases formed by XRD, the Vickers micro hardness test, etc. 

In the work of this project, we are also interested in the energy modeling of the studied process (CMT).