Wire Arc Additive Manufacturing (WAAM), an additive manufacturing technology for the manufacture of medium-to-large size metallic parts, is generating great interest. This technology employs aluminum alloys that are of immense interest for manufacturing, due to their high strength-weight ratio, corrosion resistance and utilization in different industries. Among these materials, some of the most widely used in various industrial fields are alloys classified within the 5000 series that are of good weldability and, consequently, very suitable for WAAM technology.

In this paper, aluminum alloy 5356 is analyzed in the Gas Metal Arc Welding (GMAW)-based WAAM technological process. From among the various recommended working modes of different manufacturers, three working modes for aluminum alloys are compared: pulsed-GMAW mode, Cold Arc mode and pulsed-AC mode. To do so, test samples composed of single mono-layer weld beads and single-bead walls are manufactured using each working mode and micro and macro-structural properties, geometrical shape and porosity levels of the finished products are evaluated. As a novelty, this paper includes pulsed-AC as a new transfer mode for application on aluminum. Not only does it show its viability for the manufacture of parts by WAAM, but it also allows the reduction of the presence of pores by more than six times compared to Cold Arc mode and ten times compared to pulsed-GMAW mode. This aspect makes it a very attractive mode for use on this aluminum alloy.

电弧增材制造 (WAAM) 是一种用于制造大中型金属零件的增材制造技术，引起了极大的兴趣。该技术采用了对制造非常感兴趣的铝合金，因为它们具有高强度重量比、耐腐蚀性和在不同行业中的应用。在这些材料中，在各个工业领域中应用最广泛的是属于 5000 系列的合金，它们具有良好的可焊性，因此非常适合 WAAM 技术。

本文对基于气体保护金属电弧焊 (GMAW) 的 WAAM 工艺流程中的 5356 铝合金进行了分析。从不同厂家推荐的各种工作模式中，比较了铝合金的三种工作模式：脉冲GMAW模式、冷弧模式和脉冲交流模式。为此，使用每种工作模式制造由单个单层焊道和单焊道壁组成的测试样品，并评估成品的微观和宏观结构特性、几何形状和孔隙率水平。作为一个新颖之处，本文将脉冲交流作为一种新的传输模式用于铝。它不仅展示了 WAAM 制造零件的可行性，但与冷电弧模式相比，它也允许将孔隙的存在减少六倍以上，与脉冲 GMAW 模式相比减少十倍。这方面使其成为用于这种铝合金的非常有吸引力的模式。