Speaker
Description
Copper is known for its excellent thermal and electrical conductivity. The addition of alloying elements through the use of precipitation hardening significantly increases the strength of copper, with the challenge being to establish a balanced relationship between conductivity, strength, and ductility. At the Fraunhofer IWS, a green laser is primarily employed for selective laser melting to produce complex components made of copper and its alloys. Applications can be found wherever heat is generated and needs to be quickly dissipated, such as in rocket engines, nuclear fusion, or particle accelerators. This contribution presents the achieved mechanical and electrical properties of various additively manufactured copper alloys, including CuCr1Zr, CuNi2SiCr and Cu4Cr2Nb. Additionally, the challenges of processing copper using lasers are addressed, particularly the wavelength-dependent absorption and high thermal conductivity. For the alloys and heat treatments considered, an extremely broad property window has been determined, which can now be utilized by users as a decision-making tool for their component design.
