Thermal and mechanical properties of additively manufactured copper alloys

This team (Dr. T. Gregory Guzik of LaSPACE, Dr. Shengmin Guo of LSU, and Dr. Michael M Khonsari of LSU) will target NASA Commercial Space Capabilities Office’s research call CSCO-2020-01, which allows consideration to award funded extension to the CSCO EPSCOR R3 project— “Characterization of C-18150 Additively Manufactured Material” (18-EPSCoR R3-0001). The objective of 18-EPSCoR R3-0001 is to evaluate the quality of copper-alloy (C-18150) parts made by a powder bed fusion additive manufacturing (AM) process—selective laser melting (SLM). This team has established protocols for sample preparation, thermal and mechanical property testing, material characterization, and data analysis. With the demonstrated expertise and equipment capabilities, the proposed renewal will enable the team to study thermal and mechanical properties on additional copper alloy AM parts, such as GRCop-42 (Cu-4 at.% Cr-2 at.% Nb) and GRCop-84 (Cu-8 at.% Cr-4 at.% Nb) alloys.

Thermal property measurements include the testing of bulk thermal diffusivity, specific heat and thermal conductivity on copper AM samples made using different powder sources on different AM machines. Microstructure characterizations include the study of grain size, orientation, porosity, and dispersion phase distribution. The effect of post heat treatment will be examined, assisted by thermodynamics-based phase diagram calculations. For mechanical testing, selected SLM GRCop-42 and GRCop-84 samples will be tested under tensile and low cyclic fatigue conditions. This study will provide NASA/industry with detailed datasets regarding the AM copper parts made using different supplies of feedstock materials on different AM systems.

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