Comparison of energy consumption between hybrid deposition & micro-rolling and conventional approach for wrought parts

Abstract The conventional approaches for wrought parts involve excessive energy consumption and severe pollution due to enormous equipment, the repeated heating and forging processes, and low material utilization. The hybrid deposition and micro rolling (HDMR), which combines in-situ rolling with additive manufacturing by applying synchronous pressure on the deposited layer with a micro-roller, is introduced to addresses the above challenges. To investigate the environmental performance of the HDMR process, this research develops an energy model based on active energy consumption and energy efficiency, which is verified with a deviation of 11.3% by power monitoring. A comprehensively comparative assessment is carried out between the conventional methods and HDMR for the fabrication of a wrought Ti-6Al-4V component. It is demonstrated that HDMR consumes only 35% energy of conventional approaches and shows superior performance in mechanical properties and production procedures. The energy efficiency of the deforming process in HDMR is estimated to be ∼150-fold higher than that of conventional forging processes. Thus, HDMR is expected to be a promising substitute for conventional approaches to fabricate wrought components and facilitates the green transformation of traditional forging approaches.