Wire-arc additive manufacturing (WAAM) is a process in which conventional standard welding equipment is used to produce 3D components. To this end, metal wires are molten and deposited along a predefined path. Despite the apparently best prerequisites of modern short arc processes, no aluminum or magnesium wires designed for this process are currently commercially available. Due to WAAM specific challenges, these circumstances warrant new approaches to alloy design, in particular due to the process-intrinsic heat treatment the material encounters during deposition, i.e. a result of the layer-by-layer building sequence. Standard materials intended for joining or cladding metal parts and sheets are at best suitable for simple, low-load bearing components. However, in order to exploit the advantages of WAAM in terms of mechanical properties, processing speed and material efficiency, the base material of the filler metal must offer better mechanical properties, while providing good processability.

The present work highlights material design aspects of novel and advanced light-metal alloy concepts specifically tailored to meet the requirements of WAAM. For this purpose, custom-made special alloy wires are fabricated in small quantities and applied for WAAM. Processing-related topics such as vaporization, hot cracking as well as material-performance topics regarding mechanical properties are addressed. Moreover, it is demonstrated how this technology can be used to fabricate differently shaped demonstration objects.