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Additive Manufacturing (AM) of copper and its alloys is a promising way to
produce parts with complex geometries without tooling. One of the AM processes is Selective
Laser Melting (SLM) technology that uses a laser beam to fuse powder layers to obtain a final
part. Laser processing of copper is considered to be a challenging task due to its high thermal
conductivity and poor laser absorptivity. In the present work, Cu-Cr-Zr-Ti alloy powder has
been utilized in the SLM process to produce bulk samples. SLM process parameters (laser
power, scanning speed, hatch distance) have been optimized to achieve almost fully-dense
samples with a relative density of about 99.2% and a smooth surface. The obtained bulk
samples were used to evaluate the microstructure of the as processes Cu-Cr-Zr-Ti alloy,
which consisted of elongated grains with the size of 30 - 250 µm. A test part built using the
optimized SLM parameters was 3D-scanned to evaluate the dimension accuracy, which
resulted in the average deviation of +88 µm / -81 µm from the CAD-model.
Keywords: Selective Laser Melting, Copper Alloy, Powder Metallurgy |
full paper (pdf, 1968 Kb)