An Innovative Finite Element Geometric Modeling of Single-Layer Multi-Bead WAAMed Part

Finite element (FE) coupled thermal-mechanical analysis is widely used to predict the deformation and residualstress of wire arc additive manufacturing (WAAM) parts. In this study, an innovative single-layermulti-bead profilegeometric modeling method through the isosceles trapezoid function is proposed to build the FE model of theWAAMprocess. Firstly, a straight-line model for overlapping beads based on the parabola function was establishedto calculate the optimal center distance. Then, the isosceles trapezoid-based profile was employed to replace theparabola profiles of the parabola-based overlapping model to establish an innovative isosceles trapezoid-basedmulti-bead overlapping geometric model. The rationality of the isosceles trapezoid-based overlapping model wasconfirmed by comparing the geometric deviation and the heat dissipation performance index of the two overlappingmodels. In addition, the FE-coupled thermal-mechanical analysis, as well as a comparative experiment of thesingle-layer eight-bead deposition process show that the simulation results of the above two models agree with theexperimental results. At the same time, the proposed isosceles trapezoid-based overlappingmodels are all straightlineprofiles, which can be divided into high-quality FE elements. It can improve the modeling efficiency andshorten the simulation calculation time. The innovative modeling method proposed in this study can provide anefficient and high-precision geometricmodelingmethod forWAAMpart FE coupled thermal-mechanical analysis.