Wear and material characterization of CuSn10 additively manufactured using directed energy deposition

In the current scenario, a decline in the natural deposits of copper and its alloys has called for the efficient usage of bronze in mechanical components. The development of additive manufacturing processes such as Directed Energy Deposition (DED) provides an opportunity to address this issue by replacing complete bronze components such as worm wheels with parts made of less critical raw materials and provided with bronze coatings on the wear-active interfaces. Therefore, this current work focuses on evaluating the deposition of CuSn10 on a steel substrate using DED. Four types of specimens are manufactured, three having deposition of CuSn10 on the steel substrate and one specimen having an initial deposition of CuSn10 + 316L mixture followed by CuSn10. The laser power for the deposition process was varied through the thickness of the deposition with values varying between a minimum of 600 W to a maximum of 1100 W. The specimens were subjected to wear testing under dry conditions to evaluate their friction behavior and to check for debonding between the substrate and deposition. The effect of different laser power on porosity, microstructure, and microhardness was evaluated. The results, when compared with wrought CuSn10, indicated that the DED CuSn10 can be a probable replacement for wrought CuSn10 in worm wheels.