Printing Cu on a Cold-Sprayed Cu Plate via Selective Laser Melting—Hybrid Additive Manufacturing

Abstract

The development of the additive manufacturing (AM) technology proffers challenging requirements for forming accuracy and efficiency. In this paper, a hybrid additive manufacturing technology combining fusion-based selective laser melting (SLM) and solid-state cold spraying (CS) was proposed in order to enable the fast production of near-net-shape metal parts. The idea is to fabricate a bulk deposit with a rough contour first via the “fast” CS process and then add fine structures and complex features through “slow” SLM. The experimental results show that it is feasible to deposit an SLM part onto a CS part with good interfacial bonding. However, the CS parts must be subject to heat treatment to improve their cohesion strength before being sending for SLM processing. Otherwise, the high tensile residual stress generated during the SLM process will cause fractures and cracks in the CS part. After heat treatment, pure copper deposited by CS undergoes grain growth and recrystallization, resulting in improved cohesive strength and the release of the residual stress in the CS parts. The tensile test on the SLM/CS interfacial region indicates that the bonding strength increased by 38% from 45 ± 7 MPa to 62 ± 1 MPa after the CS part is subject to heat treatment, and the SLM/CS interfacial bonding strength is higher than the CS parts. This study demonstrates that the proposed hybrid AM process is feasible and promising for manufacturing free-standing SLM-CS components.