Corrosion of additively manufactured steel components: point-by-point wire and arc manufactured steel
Responsible: Lucas Michel
Collaborations: Asel Maria Aguilar Sanchez (IfB, D-BAUG), Vlad-Alexandru Silvestru (IBK, D-BAUG), Prof. Dr. Andreas Taras (IBK, D-BAUG), Inés ARIZA (D-ARCH), Julie Vienne (D-ARCH), Romana Rust (D-ARCH), Prof. Fabio Gramazio (D-ARCH), Prof. Matthias Kohler (D-ARCH)
Funding: Internal
Background
Additive manufacturing (AM) for construction applications has the potential to have an environmental impact enabling the production of high-performance structures by controlling the placement of material only where it is required. In this regard, the technology of wire and arc additive manufacturing (WAAM) has a particularly good prospect in the future of construction as it offers the possibility to produce custom geometries with off-the-shelf, inexpensive materials and equipment in a fraction of the time of other metal AM methods. Robotically produced WAAM connections as shown in the figure above are considered a potential suitable solution for optimizing complex nodes in, e.g., space trusses or grid shells. However, they need to be corrosion resistant in their actual exposure environments.
Aims and objectives
The aim of this project is to study the corrosion performance of robotically produced WAAM steel connections in different exposure environments related to the application of the connections described above in the architectural context.
Methodology
We run exposure tests in different atmospheric exposure and investigate the corrosion attack by means of microscopy techniques. Additionally, we apply the automated local characterization method to a number of differently produced samples
Some examples of the related results are shown in Figure 1. These results allowed understanding the corrosion mechanism of steel connections manufactured with this novel production technology and to ensure that the structures will be durable in their exposure environments.
