The Influence of Structural Design on the Dimensional Accuracy of CuCrZr Alloy Produced by Laser Powder Bed Fusion

With the upgrade of additive manufacturing (AM) equipment, pure copper and various Cu-based alloys with almost full density have been successfully produced, maintaining their excellent thermal and electrical conductivity and good mechanical properties at high temperatures as well. In this paper, a model with a series of inclined surface structures was designed and fabricated to investigate the structural design on the formability of CuCrZr alloy produced by laser powder bed fusion (LPBF). The typical structure dimensions of the as-built samples were measured and compared with their corresponding dimensions and the inclined angle (α) and the relative angle (γ) between the inclined surface and recoating directions. The results demonstrate that the inclined structures with α < 50° were fabricated either with varying buckling deformation and powder adhesion or in failure for severe distortion. The differences (Ld) between the typical structure dimensions and their models increase with the decreasing of α. It has been observed that Ld reaches 1 mm when α is 20° and drastically reduces to around 200 μm when α is above 50°. When α < 50°, Ld is generally increasing with a rising γ value from 0° to 180°, significantly affecting the dimensional accuracy.