Advanced metal-wire laser additive manufacturing in-space

Additive manufacturing in-space is considered to have the potential for achieving logistical support in future space exploration. In order to meet the future metal additive manufacturing in-space, our research team is developing an advanced metal-wire laser additive manufacturing technology. The laser system is composed by 8 laser beams in an annular array. In the manufacturing process, 8 laser beams focus on the substrate to create molten pool and the metal-wire is vertically fed into the molten pool. This technology has been evaluated on ground environment and the metallurgical microstructure of the fabricated metallic parts is studied. In the immediate future, we are planning to evaluate the technology in microgravity environment using aircraft parabolic flights and carry out the comparison experiments. The experiments are used to study the effects of microgravity on the molten pool behavior, metal parts geometry, microstructure and mechanical properties.