Repair of additive manufactured thin-wall geometry using electrospark deposition

Additive manufacturing processes allow for significant design freedom when creating components, encouraging lattices or thin structures that can easily be incorporated into parts for light weighting. The ability to repair these thin structures, whether due to damage during the manufacturing process, or due to external factors during use, has the potential to reduce scrap rates and extend the lifetime of parts in service. A low-energy welding technique, electrospark deposition, is investigated for its ability to build up thick deposits on thin-walled additive manufactured structures. It was found that pulse energy and power input were correlated to both the deposition rate and defects (porosity or oxide) inside the deposit. The heat affected zone of the substrate in the thin-walled structure was also explored, considering of pulse energy, power input, and substrate thickness. It is found that the deposition process with parameter optimization can effectively build up material while limiting the extent of heat damage to thin structures.