A novel study on microstructure and crystallographic characteristics of Cu-Cr-Zr alloy manufactured by laser powder bed fusion

This work systematically investigated and discussed the differences in microstructure and crystallographic characteristics between the horizontal and vertical directions of the Cu-Cr-Zr alloy prepared by laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) and analyzed the formation mechanism of the subgrains . A sample with a relative density close to full density (99.63 ± 0.1%) was prepared. Strong texture existed parallel to building direction of < 110 > , and large geometrically necessary dislocations (GNDs) density were distributed within the grains. The proportion of large-angle grain boundaries was about 12% higher than that in the building direction due to the larger number of fine grains in the horizontal direction, and the average grain size was reduced by twice. Further stable subgrains (∼368 ± 99 nm) were attributed to substructure induced by dislocation networks, which was mainly the combined effect of large residual stress, low stacking fault energy , and internal heat treatment effects.