Assessment of Plasma Deposition Parameters for DED Additive Manufacturing of AA2319
, Erich Neubauer 2, Enrique Ariza 2, Leandro Bolzoni 3, Elena Gordo 1 and Elisa MarÃa Ruiz-Navas 1
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This paper, entitled "Assessment of plasma deposition parameters for DED additive manufacturing of AA2319", aimed at clarifying the different effects and intercorrelations that the input parameters of plasma metal deposition have on the ability and quality of additively manufactured Al alloys. In general, there are still some problems. In any case, this paper cannot be published until the following problems and opinions are solved.
Comment：
1. Some of the references the authors use are a little out of date, For example, "K.F. Ayarkwa, S. Williams, J. Ding, Investigation of pulse advance cold metal transfer on aluminium wire arc additive manufacturing, International Journal of Rapid Manufacturing 5(1) (2015) 44-57. "It can be replaced by literatures in recent five years, so that readers can have a clearer understanding of the current research progress in this field.
2. The author mentions that this paper aims to study the interaction between various parameters, but no good direct correlation has been found according to the experimental data, which seems to have little research value. It is hoped that the research value or innovation of this paper will be explained in detail in the background or conclusion.
3. In the experiment, the input current, deposition rate and wire feeding speed of three parameters are determined to be 110-180 A, 97100-220 mm/min and 0.7-1.1 m/min respectively. How the three parameter ranges were determined, whether they were selected by reference to previous literature or randomly, and what research value this range had, the author did not explain clearly.
Minor editing of English language required.
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The article is devoted to a topic popular among researchers, namely additive manufacturing. The article attempts to analyze the effect of technological parameters of plasma deposition of aluminum alloy grade AA2319.
Paper is hard to read. Perhaps this is due to the lack of a schematic description of the experimental plan.
IIn addition, I have a few more important comments to the authors:
1. At the end of 1. Introduction, you need to clearly state the purpose of the study. Now it looks like this "Therefore, the study seeks to clarify the interrelationship between these parameters when plasma metal depositing Al alloys". What are you planning to explore?
2. In the conclusions, it is necessary to indicate quantitative indicators. For now, only qualitative characteristics are given here.
3. The conclusion speaks of a decrease in porosity. How was porosity assessed? What are the numerical values of porosity?
4. What is the scientific novelty of the work? What dependencies did you get?
5. What is the practical significance of the work? What recommendations do you give for industrial production?
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
The paper regards the effects of process parameters and the shielding gas on the geometrical features and on the general quality of single tracks of AA2319 aluminum alloy deposited by DED on an AA5083 substrate.
According to my point of view, some general aspects should be improved in the manuscript before being considered for publication in JMMP. Accordingly, a review of the paper should be performed.
- Line 93. Please, change La2O3 with La2O3.
- In line 94, in the “Experimental procedure” section, the authors say that “The welding was performed from left to right”. It is not clear according to what coordinate system. According to the reviewer, a figure could help to explain it. Please, improve. Only in Figure 6, and so quite at the end of the “Results and discussion” section, the reader can see a picture of the welding beads.
- In several papers, the correlation between process parameters and dilution (D%) is considered a key-point for evaluating the quality of the depositions. Why did the author not consider calculating dilution? The reviewer suggests calculating dilution and adding this parameter in the discussion and in the model.
- How many samples/tracks did the authors perform of each combination of parameters? According to data reported in Figure 2, it seems that for some input parameters just a measure was performed. Please, clarify this point to the reviewer and improve in the manuscript.
- In lines 128-130, the authors say that “input current has the strongest effect, followed by the wire feed rate and, eventually, the deposition rate”. The R-squared values are quite low. Please, discuss this better in the manuscript.
- Line 144 and line 145, please change R2 with R2.
- The presence of possible defects in the welding beads, according to the selected combinations of process parameters, is just a bit discussed. According to the reviewer, the microstructural features of the obtained depositions and of the heat affected zone (HAZ) of the substrate must be added. Please, improve these aspects.
- Lines 227-231. Please, add a figure of the pores (see Figure 7e) at high magnification and please show evidence of metallic oxides with 10 l/min of shielding gas flow rate.
- In Figures 6,7,8 there is no evidence of scatter of data. Why?
- Lines 259-260. The authors talk about “inconsistent deposited profiles” according to what geometrical parameter? Moreover, they say “formation of large superficial pores”: are the pores on the surface or do they appear inside the welding bead, like in the micrograph of Figure 9? Please, clarify/specify better these aspects.
- The reviewer suggests to add data about the distribution and surface fraction of pores determined by image analysis in order to discuss the inner metallurgical quality of the deposited tracks according to the process parameters. In fact, in the discussion (e.g., line 272) the authors say that the “amount of pores and their size is significantly affected by the chosen deposition parameters”, but this qualitative consideration is not justified by measured data. This may help the discussion of results, as well as the conclusions of the work.
The quality of English is good.
Nevertheless, according to my point of view, minor editing of English language is required.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The revised paper has replaced outdated references and added the research value of the paper and the basis for the selection of experimental parameters. The authors have made all the changes in response to the last comments. In general, this study demonstrates that well deposited multi-layer walls made out of Al alloys can successfully be achieved via plasma metal deposition. It has some value, and I think this article is in a position to be published.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
We’d like to thank you for taking the time to write the review report of our paper. Thank you also for approving the article for publication.
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors of the article answered my questions and comments. The article has been corrected. I recommend the article for publication in this version.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
We’d like to thank you for taking the time to write the review report of our paper. Thank you also for approving the article for publication.
Reviewer 3 Report
Dear Authors,
thank you for your response and I am glad that my suggestions helped you to improve the quality of the manuscript. The other reviewers' comments helped to improve the paper, too.
Best regards.
The English language is fine, but I suggest checking it with a mother tongue.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
We’d like to thank you for taking the time to write the review report of our paper. Please find attached the review report with a mother tongue. Thank you also for approving the article for publication.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
