A Novel Metamorphic Mechanism for Efficient Additive Manufacturing

A novel metamorphic rolling mechanism (MRM) based on genetic evolution synthesis that realized multiway, multiple-DOF and synchronous plastic forming in arc based deposition processing of components with variable wall thickness is proposed in this paper. Topology and mechanical structure of the metamorphic mechanism is presented and D-H equation is derived. Experiments show that firstly efficient manufacturing of components with variable wall thickness can be realized by synchronous rolling in vertical direction. Secondly precision and surface configurations of the components are improved compared with that of freeform deposition manufacturing. The metamorphic mechanism provides possibilities of efficient hybrid manufacturing of near net shape components with variable wall thickness.