Abstract Scope |
Laser Foil Printing (LFP) is a metal additive manufacturing process recently developed at the Missouri University of Science and Technology. This process uses metal foil as feedstock, substantially increasing the cooling rate during solidification of melt pool vs. the use of metal powder as feedstock in other metal additive manufacturing processes. The LFP process steps consist of spot welding, pattern welding, cutting, and surface polishing for each layer, which involve using two lasers – a continuous-wave fiber laser and a pulsed UV laser – for the various process steps. This study examines each process step in order to increase the LFP productivity. The investigation is performed experimentally, from which the spot-welding jump speed, dwelling duration, weld pattern, line welding speed, and wait time between weld lines are determined for minimizing the LFP process time, resulting in substantial increase in part fabrication productivity. |