Post-doc position in Wire & Arc Additive Manufacturing (WAAM)

This post-doc position is in the framework of the research project PRINT-AM ICON, ‘Predictable Integrity of Large Scale Additive Manufactured Components through Intelligent Printing Strategies’, which is foreseen to run for 36 months starting from 1st of January 2019. The project is to research into wire & arc additive manufacturing (WAAM) components using experimental and numerical techniques.
The post-doc researcher will focus on developing a numerical tool allowing to predict the right combination of feedstock material composition and printing parameters, which altogether can be grouped under the term “print strategy”, to reproduce a well-defined microstructure. In order to reach that goal, the project will rely on the work being realised inside a recently concluded DeMoPreCI-MDT SBO research project. Within DeMoPreCI-MDT SBO project, a multi-physics welding model was developed to predict the microstructure resulting from a welding process, using only the composition of the base material, filler material and welding parameters as input data. Within the PRINT-AM project, our intention is to reverse this model in order to define the printing strategy using only the resulting microstructure as input. Achieving this goal successfully, will already allow using WAAM to repair or replace an existing product, which today is produced through a conventional production process and thereby realising the first economic objective of reducing the logistic cost of stock.