Journal of Materials Processing Technology 214 (2014) 11021110

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Journal of Materials Processing Technology
j our nal homepage: www. el sevi er . com/ l ocat e/ j mat pr ot ec
Development of micro-plasma transferred arc (-PTA) wire
deposition process for additive layer manufacturing applications
Suyog Jhavar
a
, N.K. Jain
a,
, C.P. Paul
b
a
Discipline of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Indore, MP, India
b
Laser Materials Processing Division, Raja Ramanna Centre for Advanced Technology, Indore, MP, India
a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Received 18 October 2013
Received in revised form
13 December 2013
Accepted 26 December 2013
Available online 7 January 2014
Keywords:
Micro-plasma
Wire deposition
Additive layer manufacturing
Repairing
Remanufacturing
Dies and molds
a b s t r a c t
Micro-plasma transferred arc (-PTA) deposition process has potential to meet requirements of the
meso-sized fabrication and repair of the high value components. This paper reports on the development
of -PTA as cost effective and energy efcient alternative process for small sized deposition with an
overall objective to repair and/or remanufacture the defective dies and molds. An experimental setup
was developed to deposit 300 m diameter wire of AISI P20 tool steel on the substrate of the same mate-
rial which is one of the most commonly used materials for making the dies and molds used for various
applications. Two stage experiments were conducted to indentify the important process parameters gen-
erating regular and smooth single bead geometry. The process was further explored for highest possible
deposition rate for fabrication of straight walls through multi-layer deposition. The -PTA deposition
process was found to be capable of fabricating straight walls having total wall width of 2.45 mm and
effective wall width of 2.11 mm. The deposition efciency was found to be 87% for the maximum depo-
sition rate of 42 g/h. The microscopic examination and micro-hardness measurements revealed that the
deposited wall is free from cracks, porosity, and inclusions. This study conrms the capability of -PTA for
ALM in comparison to the existing high energy deposition processes used for meso-scale fabrication and
repair applications of the dies and molds. This work conrms that -PTA wire deposition process offers
the advantages of the laser based processes at much lower cost and more energy efciency thus making
it potential alternative process for repair and remanufacturing of the defective dies and molds. Use of
ner wire can further reduce the deposition size enabling -PTA wire deposition process to fabricate the
miniaturized parts.
2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Production of parts using additive layer manufacturing (ALM) is
considered to be superior to the subtractive (i.e. various machin-
ing processes) and deformative (i.e. various forming processes)
manufacturing processes due to its material and energy efciency.
ALMcan be used to fabricate near net-shape parts made of metals,
polymers, ceramics, composites and functionally graded materials.
Levy et al. (2003) reviewed the ALM processes (both patented as
well as commercialized) for rapid manufacturing and rapid tool-
ing applications and concluded that though technology of ALM
for polymer based materials has matured with commercial avail-
ability of many rapid prototyping (RP) machines but, same is not
true for metallic materials and it still remains a challenge to the
researchers. They also mentioned that the type of energy source
is one of the major factors differentiating among various ALM

Corresponding author. Tel.: +91 732 4240 702; fax: +91 732 4240 761.
E-mail address: nkjain@iiti.ac.in (N.K. Jain).
processes. For metallic materials, laser, electron beam and elec-
tric arc are major energy sources used in ALM. Laser and electron
beamare more precise energy sources than the electric arc there-
fore they are more preferred for miniature sized deposition. But, a
major drawback is their poor energy conversion efciency which
causes higher energy consumption for fabrication of components,
tooling and related applications. Use of energy efcient sources
and increase in the deposition rates are the two major issues for
ALMprocesses. Suryakumar et al. (2011) have mentioned that the
deposition rate achieved by laser or electron beam is of the order
of 210g/min whereas, electric arc based deposition processes
can achieve it in the range of 50130g/min. Therefore, arc based
deposition techniques are preferred for bulk deposition of metallic
materials. Jandric et al. (2004) successfully built 3D-metallic parts
using gas tungsten arc welding (GTAW) process for depositing the
material. The manufactured part was free fromcracks, porosity and
had uniform microstructure throughout. Akula and Karunakaran
(2006) developed a direct metal rapid tool making process using
metal inert gas (MIG) and metal active gas (MAG) welding inte-
grated with computer numerical controlled (CNC) milling process
0924-0136/$ see front matter 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jmatprotec.2013.12.016
S. Jhavar et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 214 (2014) 11021110 1103
to manufacture the metallic dies and molds. Micro-arc based depo-
sition is one of the recent ALM techniques having prospective
applications in repairs and fabrication at meso-scale. Horii et al.
(2009) reported success in making 3D-structures using micro-
sized wire for miniature deposition using micro-tungsten inert gas
(-TIG) welding system. They mentioned that this can be useful
for meso-scale net-shaping. Almeida and Williams (2010) devel-
oped out-of-chamber ALM using gas metal arc welding (GMAW)
to deposit a wall of Ti-6Al-4V. Baufeld et al. (2011) deposited
multi-layered single bead wall using a combination of laser beam
deposition and GTAWwith the help of a 6-axis robotic system. They
did comparative study of the mechanical properties of the deposits
by both the processes. Their results conrm that both laser and
GTAWprocesses canbe used for ALMapplications. Fewresearchers
have explored use of energy efcient processes for ALM appli-
cations. Rangesh and ONeill (2012) developed a free space metal
deposition system using a lead-free soldering iron for ALM appli-
cations. They used soldering arm as the heat source as well as a
support for the deposition. Martina et al. (2012) used plasma wire
deposition to make walls of Ti-6Al-4V. They designed their experi-
ments using D-optimal design method and achieved 1.8kg/h as the
highest deposition rate feeding 1.2mmdiameter wire at 100mm/s.
Form of the ller material is an important parameter in the
ALM processes. It can be in the form of wire, micron-sized pow-
der or combination of both. Paul et al. (2012) have mentioned that
powdered form of deposition material is preferred for the laser
based processes. Whereas, wire formis preferred for fabrication of
components involving continuous deposition because intermittent
start andstopresults indiscontinuity inthe depositedmaterial. Use
of wire also results in almost 100% material utilization efciency.
Kukreja et al. (2012) have shown that the material utilization ef-
ciencyincaseof powderedller material depends onthecatchment
area of the energy source. Powdered ller materials which fall out
of the catchment area are often required to be recycled for rea-
sons of cost effectiveness and environment friendliness. But, their
contamination hinders their recycling process. Moreover, storage
of powdered ller material is also very challenging. Consequently,
use of ller material in the form of wire is preferable because it is
less complex, environment friendly and minimizes health hazards.
Various defects in the dies and molds such as plastically
deformed geometries, minor cracks, deteriorated edges, heat
checks, dents are mainly developed due to local impacts, thermal
stresses and corrosion. If these defects can be identied at early
stage then they can be corrected through small sized deposition.
Jhavar et al. (2013) reviewed the various failure modes of dies and
molds and their repairing options and concluded that use of energy
efcient ALMprocess to repair and/or remanufacture the defective
dies and molds can signicantly improve their performance, life
span and protability. Rao (2012) in her survey on global scenario
of dies and molds producers has concluded that the majority of dies
and molds producers are small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
Use of high energy beamprocesses (i.e. laser and electron beam) to
remanufacture/repair the defective dies and molds are limited due
toveryhighinitial investment andhigher operatingcost whichcan-
not be afforded by SMEs. Therefore, there is an impending demand
to develop a low cost, material and energy efcient process for
repair and remanufacturing of the defective dies and molds.
The present work attempts to develop micro-plasma trans-
ferred arc (-PTA) wire deposition process to meet this demand.
The paper reports a systematic study to indentify the optimum
process parameters and characterizing its performance at various
combinations of the input parameters. An experimental setup was
developed to deposit AISI P20 tool steel wire of 300m diameter
onthe substrate of the same material. Experiments were conducted
to indentify the process parameters for producing regular and
smooth single bead geometry. The process was further explored
Table 1
Chemical composition of substrate and deposited material.
Elements C Mn Cr Mo Si Cu Ni
Substrate 0.40 1.5 1.9 0.2 0.1
Deposited wire 0.1 0.97 1.9 1.03 0.54 0.03 0.03
for highest possible depositionrate to fabricate multi-layer straight
walls.
2. Experimentation
2.1. Material
In the present study, pre-hardened AISI P-20 tool steel samples
of size 100mm180mm 9mmwere used as substrate. AISI P20
tool steel is chromiummolybdenum steel, which can withstand
the forces encountered in the zinc die casting and plastic mold-
ing. Chromium provides resistance to the oxidizing environment.
Molybdenumhelps it to resist pitting, crevice corrosion and resis-
tance to non-oxidizing environment. This tool steel can be polished
to extremely high surface nish hence it is best suited for extrusion
dies, press-brake dies, casting dies for aluminum, injection molds,
mediumandlargesizemolds, andformingtools. Thesubstratesam-
ples were cut, machined, shot blasted and cleaned with acetone
before using for deposition (Table 1).
2.2. Experimental setup
Fig. 1 depicts the schematic of the experimental setup devel-
oped for -PTAdeposition process. It was developed by integrating
micro-plasma welding systemand an indigenously developed wire
feeding systemwith an X-Y worktable on which the substrate was
mounted. The spool of AISI P20 wire was loaded on the wire-
feeding system which can feed the wire at rate of 850, 1275 and
1700mm/min. The nozzle of micro-plasma welding system was
suitably modied for feeding the wire to the melt-pool. Argon
gas was used for both plasma generation and shielding. An arc
was established between the tungsten electrode positioned within
the body of the torch and the copper nozzle through charging of
plasma gas owing between them. This arc was transferred to the
workpiece through an additional circuit provided between plasma
nozzle and the substrate. The intense heat produced through
plasma causes melting and fusion of ller wire along with little
Fig. 1. Schematic of the experimental setup developed for -PTA deposition pro-
cess.
1104 S. Jhavar et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 214 (2014) 11021110
Table 2
Ranges (values) of the input parameters used in the pilot (main) experiments.
Parameter name Range for the pilot experiments Values for the main experiments
Plasma power (W) 50450 350, 400, 450
Travel speed of worktable (mm/min) 40160 40, 50, 63, 80, 100
Wire feed rate (mm/min) 8501700 850, 1275, 1700
Wire feed angle (degrees) 2060 45
Stand-off distance (mm) 58 5
Plasma gas owrate (nl/min) 0.10.5 0.4
Shield gas owrate (nl/min) 3.08.0 5.0
melting of the substrate. The melt pool was protected by providing
an envelope of the shielding gas throughout the process. This sys-
tem had maximum plasma power capacity of 450Wwith current
varying in the range of 0.118A with a step of 0.1A. The work-
table had travel length of 300mm in X-direction, 160mm in the
Y-direction and a maximumtravel speed of 100mm/min.
2.3. Experimental procedure and observations
The experiments were planned and conducted in two stages: (a)
pilot experiments and(b) mainexperiments. The pilot experiments
were conducted (i) to bracket the ranges of three input parameters
namely plasma power (P), travel speed of worktable (v), wire feed
rate (f) for the main experiments, and (ii) to nd optimumvalue of
wire feed angle, stand-off distance (SOD), plasma gas owrate and
shield gas ow rate for main experiments. Table 2 mentions the
ranges of the input parameters used in the pilot experiments along
with the ranges or values identied for the main experiments.
During the pilot experiments, wire feed angle of 45

was found
to produce the highest deposition efciency with front feeding of
the wire and same is also conrmed by previous work by Abioye
et al. (2013). Stand-off distance of 5mm was found to be opti-
mum as it allowed smooth wire feeding to the melt zone through
the wire feed nozzle while, higher stand-off distance decreased
plasma power. This matches with the conclusions of Wang et al.
(2003) who studied the variation in the plasma power with SOD
and plasma current and found that the maximum plasma power
can be obtained at SOD between 4 and 6mm. Plasma gas owrate
of 0.4 normal liter per minute (nl/min) was found to be sufcient
to transfer plasma power toward the substrate while, shield gas
owrate of 5nl/min was found sufcient to protect melt pool from
atmospheric contamination. It was observed that lower values of
the shieldgas owrate allowedthe atmospheric gases to react with
themelt pool resultinginporous andunevendepositionandspatter
during deposition whereas, higher values caused spread of molten
pool generating dimple like impression over the top surface of the
deposit.
Based on the pilot experiments, three parameters namely
plasma power, travel speed of worktable and wire feed rate were
identied as most signicant parameters for the further studies in
the main experiments for depositing single track over AISI P20 tool
steel. It was observedduring the pilot experiments that a minimum
300Wof plasma power was requiredtomelt thestationaryAISI P20
wire of 300m. A small portion of heat is also required to melt the
substrate during -PTAdeposition called wetting which is required
to develop strong bond between the substrate and consecutive lay-
ers. Therefore, plasma power was bracketed to vary in the range of
350450W for the main experiments. Discontinuous tracks were
observed for the travel speed of worktable more than 100mm/min
for the maximumwire feed rate. Hence, a range of 40100mm/min
was bracketed for travel speed of the worktable. All three values of
the wire feed rate available with the fabricated system were used
during the main experiments. Consequently, forty ve main exper-
iments were planned and conducted using full factorial approach
to study the effects of plasma power, travel speed of the worktable,
and wire feed rate on the width, height and quality of the single
bead deposited track. Each experiment was repeated thrice and the
best result in terms of bead quality for each experiment is reported
in this paper. Table 3 presents the values of the input parameters
and corresponding responses for main experiments.
Each deposited track was cut in the direction transverse to the
deposition direction and the sample was prepared using standard
metallographic procedure for optical microscopy. Leica DMIL com-
pact inverted microscope was used to measure the height and
width of the deposited track. The quality of each deposition track
was determined through visual examination. Based on the depo-
sition quality, selected tracks were further analyzed to evaluate
energy input per unit traverse length E
l
in J/mm, volumetric feed
rate of wire per unit traverse length V
l
in mm
3
/mm and material
deposition rate G in g/h. The combination of the process param-
eters that deposited the track with the lowest energy input per
unit traverse length and highest deposition rate was selected for
multi-layer deposition to fabricate straight walls. The cross-section
of deposited wall was analyzed with the help of AutoCAD software
to calculate surface waviness and deposition efciency. Scanning
electron microscopy (SEM) was done on Zeiss supra 55 to examine
presence of any porosity, inclusion and cracks in the multi-layer
deposition. The micro-hardness was measured using UHL VMHT
applying a load of 500gf for the duration of 15s.
3. Results and analysis
It was observedduringthe experiments that use of higher values
of plasma power and lower wire feed rate caused over-melting of
the base and ller material and even evaporation of the deposited
material which led to discontinuity, cavities and either no or very
litter deposition. On the contrary, use of lower plasma power and
higher wire feed rate resulted in lower bonding between the sub-
strate and the ller material due to insufcient melting of the ller
material andits collisionwiththesubstrateintheextremecase. The
collision produced during deposition may deect delivery of the
ller wire offsetting it from the center position. As wire position-
ing to plasma delivery center is very important in order to utilize
the maximumplasma energyandproduce sounddeposition, center
offsettingmay cause wrongwire positioningandirregular deposits.
It was noted that there is a balance of plasma power and wire feed
rate required for the sound deposition.
Fromthe experimental results presented in Table 3, those nine
combinations of input parameters (corresponding to the exp. no.
12, 13, 14, 27, 28, 29, 38, 39 and 40) producing regular and smooth
single track geometry were identied for further investigations. It
canbe observedthat the values of the widthandheight of deposited
track for these parametric combinations ranges from 1.3 to 2mm
and 0.6 to 1mmrespectively.
Fig. 2 depicts optical micro-graphs for these nine samples. The
geometry of the track deposited by -PTA depends on the inter-
action of micro-plasma (i.e. heat source) and the type of material
being deposited. Two parameters namely plasma energy per unit
S. Jhavar et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 214 (2014) 11021110 1105
Table 3
Values of variable input parameters and corresponding responses for the main experiments.
Exp. no. Variable input parameters Responses
Plasma power
P (W)
Travel speed of worktable
v (mm/min)
Wire feed rate
f (mm/min)
Deposited track
width (mm)
Deposited track
height (mm)
Quality of deposition
1 350 40 1700 1.9 1.8 Non-uniformdeposit
2 350 50 1700 1.8 1.6 Non-uniformdeposit
3 350 63 1700 1.5 1.3 Non-uniformdeposit
4 350 80 1700 1.4 1.2 Non-uniformdeposit
5 350 100 1700 1.2 1 Non-uniformdeposit
6 350 40 1275 1.6 1.4 Non-uniformdeposit
7 350 50 1275 1.5 1.3 Non-uniformdeposit
8 350 63 1275 1.4 1.2 Non-uniformdeposit
9 350 80 1275 1.2 1 Non-uniformdeposit
10 350 100 1275 1.1 0.8 Non-uniformdeposit
11 350 40 850 1.5 1.2 Non-uniformdeposit
12 350 50 850 1.3 1 Regular deposit
13 350 63 850 1.3 0.8 Regular deposit
14 350 80 850 1.4 0.7 Regular deposit
15 350 100 850 1.5 0.6 Non-uniformdeposit
16 400 40 1700 2 1.6 Non-uniformdeposit
17 400 50 1700 2 1.4 Non-uniformdeposit
18 400 63 1700 1.9 1.1 Non-uniformdeposit
19 400 80 1700 1.8 0.9 Non-uniformdeposit
20 400 100 1700 1.9 0.8 Non-uniformdeposit
21 400 40 1275 1.9 1.4 Non-uniformdeposit
22 400 50 1275 1.8 1.2 Non-uniformdeposit
23 400 63 1275 1.8 1 Non-uniformdeposit
24 400 80 1275 1.9 0.9 Non-uniformdeposit
25 400 100 1275 2 0.8 Non-uniformdeposit
26 400 40 850 1.8 0.9 Non-uniformdeposit
27 400 50 850 1.7 0.8 Regular deposit
28 400 63 850 1.6 0.7 Regular deposit
29 400 80 850 1.8 0.6 Regular deposit
30 400 100 850 1.9 0.5 Non-uniformdeposit
31 450 40 1700 2.1 1.5 Non-uniformdeposit
32 450 50 1700 2.1 1.3 Non-uniformdeposit
33 450 63 1700 2 1 Non-uniformdeposit
34 450 80 1700 1.9 0.9 Non-uniformdeposit
35 450 100 1700 2.1 0.8 Non-uniformdeposit
36 450 40 1275 2.2 1.3 Non-uniformdeposit
37 450 50 1275 2.1 1.1 Non-uniformdeposit
38 450 63 1275 1.9 0.9 Regular deposit
39 450 80 1275 1.7 0.7 Regular deposit
40 450 100 1275 2 0.6 Regular deposit
41 450 40 850 1.9 0.9 Non-uniformdeposit
42 450 50 850 2.1 0.8 Non-uniformdeposit
43 450 63 850 1.8 0.6 Non-uniformdeposit
44 450 80 850 2 0.4 Non-uniformdeposit
45 450 100 850 0.6 0.1 Non-uniformdeposit
traverse length (E
l
) and volumetric feed rate of wire per unit trav-
erse length (V
l
) governs the consumption of plasma energy and
feed material for a single track deposition thus determining the
material deposition rate (G). The three parameters were calcu-
lated using equations (1a)(1c). These calculations are shown in
Table 4. It can be observed from data that the threshold values of
plasma energy per unit of traverse length and volumetric feed rate
of wire per unit traverse length are 262J/mm and 10.6mm
3
/mm
respectively for the regular and smooth deposition yielding a depo-
sition rate of 28.1g/h.
E
l
(J/mm) =
60P
V
(1a)
V
l
(mm
3
/mm) =
A
w
f
v
(1b)
Table 4
Identied experimental conditions giving the regular deposition.
Exp. no. Plasma power
P (W)
Travel speed of
worktable v
(mm/min)
Wire feed rate f
(mm/min)
Plasma energy input per
unit traverse length E
l

(J/mm)
Volumetric feed rate of
wire per unit traverse
length V
l
(mm
3
/mm)
Material deposition
rate G (g/h)
12 350 50 850 420.00 17 28.1
13 350 63 850 333.33 13.49 28.1
14 350 80 850 262.50 10.63 28.1
27 400 50 850 480.00 17 28.1
28 400 63 850 380.95 13.49 28.1
29 400 80 850 300.00 10.63 28.1
38 450 63 1275 428.57 20.24 42.2
39 450 80 1275 337.50 15.94 42.2
40 450 100 1275 270.00 12.75 42.2
1106 S. Jhavar et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 214 (2014) 11021110
Fig. 2. Optical micrographs of the nine samples having regular and uniformsingle-bead deposition.
G (g/h) = 60A
w
f
w
(1c)
Here, A
w
is the cross section area of the wire (mm
2
) and
w
is the
density of the wire (g/mm
3
).
3.1. Characteristics of multi-layer deposits
Out of the nine parametric combinations, the one which gave
the lowest plasma energy input per unit traverse length and high-
est deposition rate (i.e. experiment no. 40 in Table 4) was selected
S. Jhavar et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 214 (2014) 11021110 1107
Fig. 3. Typical multi-layer deposition (a) geometry and (b) SEMimages at various locations along its height.
for multi-layer deposition of a straight wall consisting of 15 lay-
ers with deposition length of 50mmfor each layer. The deposition
was started fromthe end point of the previous layer for each sub-
sequent layer. The experiment was repeated thrice to conrmthe
process accuracy. The average values of deposition height mea-
sured from the substrate were 7.6mm, 8mm and 7.8mm for the
three fabricated multi-layer deposited straight walls. Fig. 3a shows
geometry of the best quality multi-layer deposited sample, while
Fig. 3b depicts the SEM images of deposition at various locations
along the height of straight wall. It can be seen fromthese gures
that the multi-layer deposition gave smooth but little wavy surface
topographynecessitatingsomenishingoperationtoachieveplane
deposition surface. It also signies the complete melting of ller
wire during deposition and good bonding between the intermedi-
ate layers. The samples were subjected to dye penetration tests and
it was conrmed that the deposited samples were free fromdefects
such as cracks, porosity and inclusions at the surface. Fromthe SEM
images shown in Fig. 3b, it can be observed that the multi-layer
deposition has dense structure having uniform and non-dendritic
grains at a particular location and is free fromporosity, inclusions
and cracks.
The deposited wall of the best multi-layer sample was further
analyzed for calculating total wall width (TWW), effective wall
width (EWW) and deposition efciency. For this, the wall was
cut in the transverse direction to deposition. The deposited walls
were observed to be irregular over side surfaces due to inter-layer
waviness and required subsequent nishing. Martina et al. (2012)
referred wall width before and after the nishing as TWW and
EWWrespectively. The sample was preparedusingstandardmetal-
lographic procedure for optical microscopy. The optical micrograph
image was processed in the AutoCAD software of Autodesk Inc. for
the calculationof TWW, EWW, surface waviness (Eq. (2)) anddepo-
sition efciency (Eq. (3)). The AutoCADpost-processed micrograph
of the transverse section is shown in Fig. 4.
Surface waviness =
Total wall width Effective wall width
2
(2)
Deposition efciency =
AreaA
AreaA +AreaB +AreaC
(3)
Microscopy of the samples also conrmed that there was no
inter-layer or trans-layer porosity in the samples and the deposits
were smooth and have good bonding strength with the substrate
and inter-layer deposits. The -PTA deposition process was able
to fabricate straight wall having TWW of 2.45mm and EWW of
2.11mm. Thedepositionefciencywas foundtobe87%witha max-
imumdeposition rate of 42g/h. The surface waviness was found to
be 0.17mm.
3.2. Micro-hardness measurement
The micro-hardness of the -PTA deposited material across the
cross-section was measured. Fig. 5 shows values of the micro-
hardness along the height of deposition.
A minimumhardness value of 253 HV was found near to the top
layer and a maximum hardness value of 616 HV in the HAZ. Lit-
tle variation in micro-hardness was found within a particular layer
whereas, there is a signicant variation across the deposited lay-
ers. It canalso be observedthat the higher values of micro-hardness
occur near the heat affected zone (HAZ) which spreads up to few
1108 S. Jhavar et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 214 (2014) 11021110
Fig. 4. Optical micrograph showing various parameters used to judge the quality of
multi-layer wall deposition by -PTA process.
millimeters. The micro-hardness decreases slightly with subse-
quent layers toward the top. This is due to the fact that the initial
layers are deposited over a substrate at room temperature, which
acts as a heat sink giving relatively higher cooling rate as compared
to the subsequent layers for which the previous deposited layers
act as heat sink. Higher carbon content of the substrate also con-
tributes to higher hardness values near the substrate. The hardness
in the HAZ can be minimized using a preheated substrate or giving
heat treatment after the deposition. The deposition above fewini-
tial layers were found almost harmonized and the hardness values
of these zones were found near to that of the substrate.
Fig. 5. Micro-hardness prole for the best quality multi-layer deposited sample.
3.3. Comparison with other competitive processes
Table 5 presents comparison of the results of present work
with some of the most recent experimental studies on multi-layer
wall deposition using single bead geometry in terms of the energy
source used, ller material and its form, energy consumption per
unit traverse length (J/mm), consumption rate of the ller mate-
rial, power consumption per unit ller material consumption and
TWW. It can be observed from this comparison that though the
laser based deposition processes require very less energy input
per unit traverse length but their power consumption per unit of
ller material consumption is very high. Moreover, they have poor
energy conversion efciency. While, conventional arc based depo-
sition processes require very high energy per unit traverse length
and use high feed rate of the ller material but consume less power
per unit ller material consumption. They alsofocus higher amount
of heat over larger area therefore it is difcult to use these pro-
cesses for meso-scale deposition. It is evident from Table 5 that
-PTA wire deposition process is very economical and energy ef-
cient because it requires much less power consumption per unit
ller material consumption as compared to the laser and arc based
processes. Fig. 6 compares the performance of the -PTA deposi-
tion process with the other competitive processes as reported by
Martina et al. (2012) in terms of terms of TWW, EWW and layer
height (LH). It reveals that though plasma wire deposition (PWD)
can achieve smaller size deposition than the gas metal arc welding
(GMAW) based processes it cannot achieve very small size deposi-
tion which can be achieved by the laser based processes. It is also
evident from the comparison of Fig. 6 that -PTA wire deposition
Table 5
Comparison of the outcome of the present work with some of the most recent experimental studies on single bead multi-layer wall deposition.
Authors (year) Type of energy
source
Filler material
and its form
Energy consumption
per unit traverse length
(J/mm)
Consumption rate
of the ller
material
Power consumption
per unit ller material
consumption
TWW
Bi and Gasser (2011) Nd:YAG laser Powder of
Ni-based super
alloy
36 1.5g/min 12,000J/g 1.3mm
Gharbi et al. (2013) Yb:YAG laser Powder of
Ti-6Al-4V
4875 1g/min 19,20030,000J/g 1.92.1mm
Ravi et al. (2013) Disk laser Powder of
SC420
7.067.5 2.612g/min 23049000J/g 0.54.0mm
Zhao et al. (2012) GMAW 1.2mm
diameter wire
of H08Mn2Si
1490 2880mm/min 50.4J/mm N.A.
Present work Micro-plasma 0.3mm
diameter wire
of AISI P-20
steel
270 1275mm/min 21.1J/mm 2.45mm
S. Jhavar et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 214 (2014) 11021110 1109
Fig. 6. Comparison of -PTA process with other deposition processes in terms of total wall width (TWW), effective wall width (EWW) and layer height (LH) [data for other
processes taken fromMartina et al. (2012)].
process can bridge this gap and can fabricate the meso-scale com-
ponents. Use of ner wire can further reduce the deposition size
enabling -PTA wire deposition process to fabricate the minia-
turized parts and offer the capabilities of laser based processes at
much lower cost and power consumption per unit ller material
consumption.
4. Conclusions
This paper reported on the development of -PTA wire depo-
sition process for various additive layered manufacturing (ALM)
applications involving meso-scale depositionfor repair andreman-
ufacturing. Following conclusion can be drawn from the present
work:
1. The plasma energy per unit of traverse length and volumetric
wire feedrate of wire per unit traverse lengthwere foundtohave
thresholdvalues of 262J/mmand10.6mm
3
/mm respectively for
the regular and smooth deposition yielding a deposition rate of
28.1g/h.
2. Multi-layer deposited geometry consisted of fully dense struc-
ture of good surface quality.
3. The deposition above fewinitial layers was found to be homoge-
neous and the hardness values of these zones were found near
to that of the substrate.
4. The -PTAwire deposition process was able to fabricate straight
wall consisting of 15 layers having TWW of 2.45mm with an
EWWof 2.11mmwith a deposition efciency of 87% and could
achieve a maximumdeposition rate of 42g/h.
5. -PTA wire deposition process conrmed to be cost-effective,
energy efcient and environmental friendly process for multi-
layer deposition and has potential to become alternative process
for repairing and remanufacturing of the defective dies and
molds and other high value engineering components.
6. The present study used 300mdiameter wire but it can be fur-
ther extendedusingsmaller wiresizefor thener depositionand
using variety of the ller and substrate materials and to charac-
terize the deposition. Use of ner wire can further reduce the
deposition size enabling -PTA wire deposition process to fab-
ricate the miniaturized parts and offer the capabilities of laser
based processes at much lower cost and power consumption per
unit consumption of the ller material.
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary data associated with this article can be found, in
the online version, at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jmatprotec.2013.
12.016.
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