scholarly journals Preparation of Cu-Cr-Zr Alloy by Laser Powder Bed Fusion: Parameter Optimization, Microstructure, Mechanical and Thermal Properties for Microelectronic Applications

Metals ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (9) ◽  
pp. 1410
Author(s):  
Xiangyao Fang ◽  
Weisheng Xia ◽  
Qingsong Wei ◽  
Yiping Wu ◽  
Weiwen Lv ◽  
...  

Laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) technology is beneficial for the fabrication of thermal conductive materials, integrating with the predesigned structure, which shows a great potential for high heat dissipation applications. Here, a Cu–Cr–Zr alloy with relative density of 98.53% is successfully prepared by LPBF after process optimization. On this basis, microstructure, phase identification, precipitates, mechanical and thermal properties are investigated. The results demonstrate that the surface morphology of microstructure is affected by laser energy density, the α-Cu is the main phase of the LPBF sample and the virgin powder, the size of Cr spherical precipitates in some areas is about 1 μm, and the tensile fracture mode is a mixed ductile–brittle mode. Furthermore, the Vickers hardness of the LPBF Cu-Cr-Zr sample is 70.7 HV to 106.1 HV, which is higher than that of LPBF Cu and a wrought C11000 Cu, and the difference in Vickers hardness of different planes reflects the anisotropy. Ultimately, the two types of Cu–Cr–Zr alloy heat sinks are successfully fabricated, and their heat transfer coefficients are positively correlated with the volume flow. The heat dissipation performance of the cylindrical micro-needle heat sink is better, and its maximum heat transfer coefficient is 3887 W/(m2·K).

Author(s):  
Bo Cheng ◽  
Brandon Lane ◽  
Justin Whiting ◽  
Kevin Chou

Powder bed metal additive manufacturing (AM) utilizes a high-energy heat source scanning at the surface of a powder layer in a pre-defined area to be melted and solidified to fabricate parts layer by layer. It is known that powder bed metal AM is primarily a thermal process and further, heat conduction is the dominant heat transfer mode in the process. Hence, understanding the powder bed thermal conductivity is crucial to process temperature predictions, because powder thermal conductivity could be substantially different from its solid counterpart. On the other hand, measuring the powder thermal conductivity is a challenging task. The objective of this study is to investigate the powder thermal conductivity using a method that combines a thermal diffusivity measurement technique and a numerical heat transfer model. In the experimental aspect, disk-shaped samples, with powder inside, made by a laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) system, are measured using a laser flash system to obtain the thermal diffusivity and the normalized temperature history during testing. In parallel, a finite element model is developed to simulate the transient heat transfer of the laser flash process. The numerical model was first validated using reference material testing. Then, the model is extended to incorporate powder enclosed in an LPBF sample with thermal properties to be determined using an inverse method to approximate the simulation results to the thermal data from the experiments. In order to include the powder particles’ contribution in the measurement, an improved model geometry, which improves the contact condition between powder particles and the sample solid shell, has been tested. A multi-point optimization inverse heat transfer method is used to calculate the powder thermal conductivity. From this study, the thermal conductivity of a nickel alloy 625 powder in powder bed conditions is estimated to be 1.01 W/m·K at 500 °C.


Author(s):  
Bo Cheng ◽  
Brandon Lane ◽  
Justin Whiting ◽  
Kevin Chou

Powder bed metal additive manufacturing (AM) utilizes a high-energy heat source scanning at the surface of a powder layer in a predefined area to be melted and solidified to fabricate parts layer by layer. It is known that powder bed metal AM is primarily a thermal process, and further, heat conduction is the dominant heat transfer mode in the process. Hence, understanding the powder bed thermal conductivity is crucial to process temperature predictions, because powder thermal conductivity could be substantially different from its solid counterpart. On the other hand, measuring the powder thermal conductivity is a challenging task. The objective of this study is to investigate the powder thermal conductivity using a method that combines a thermal diffusivity measurement technique and a numerical heat transfer model. In the experimental aspect, disk-shaped samples, with powder inside, made by a laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) system, are measured using a laser flash system to obtain the thermal diffusivity and the normalized temperature history during testing. In parallel, a finite element (FE) model is developed to simulate the transient heat transfer of the laser flash process. The numerical model was first validated using reference material testing. Then, the model is extended to incorporate powder enclosed in an LPBF sample with thermal properties to be determined using an inverse method to approximate the simulation results to the thermal data from the experiments. In order to include the powder particles' contribution in the measurement, an improved model geometry, which improves the contact condition between powder particles and the sample solid shell, has been tested. A multipoint optimization inverse heat transfer method is used to calculate the powder thermal conductivity. From this study, the thermal conductivity of a nickel alloy 625 powder in powder bed conditions is estimated to be 1.01 W/m K at 500 °C.


Materials ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 538 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fabrizia Caiazzo ◽  
Vittorio Alfieri ◽  
Giuseppe Casalino

Laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) can fabricate products with tailored mechanical and surface properties. In fact, surface texture, roughness, pore size, the resulting fractional density, and microhardness highly depend on the processing conditions, which are very difficult to deal with. Therefore, this paper aims at investigating the relevance of the volumetric energy density (VED) that is a concise index of some governing factors with a potential operational use. This paper proves the fact that the observed experimental variation in the surface roughness, number and size of pores, the fractional density, and Vickers hardness can be explained in terms of VED that can help the investigator in dealing with several process parameters at once.


2021 ◽  
Vol 211 ◽  
pp. 110131
Author(s):  
Marvin Schuster ◽  
Anthony De Luca ◽  
Aditi Mathur ◽  
Ehsan Hosseini ◽  
Christian Leinenbach

Metals ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 57
Author(s):  
Bharat Mehta ◽  
Arvid Svanberg ◽  
Lars Nyborg

This study shows a rapid and systematic approach towards identifying full density and peak hardness for an Al-Mg-Sc-Zr alloy commonly known as Scalmalloy®. The alloy is tailored for the laser powder bed fusion process and has been shown to be printable with >99.8% relative density. The microstructure suggests Al grain refinement in melt pool boundaries, associated with formation of primary Al3(Sc,Zr) particles during solidification. Peak hardening response was identified by heat treatment tests at 573,598 and 623 K between 0 and 10 h. A peak hardness of 172 HV0.3 at 598 K for 4 h was identified. The mechanical properties were also tested with yield and ultimate strengths of 287 MPa and 364 MPa in as-printed and 468 MPa and 517 MPa in peak hardened conditions, respectively, which is consistent with the literature. Such an approach is considered apt when qualifying new materials in industrial laser powder bed fusion systems. The second part of the study discusses the thermal stability of such alloys post-peak-hardening. One set of samples was peak hardened at the conditions identified before and underwent secondary ageing at three different temperatures of 423,473 and 523 K between 0 and 120 h to understand thermal stability and benchmark against conventional Al alloys. The secondary heat treatments performed at lower temperatures revealed lower deterioration of hardness over ageing times as compared to the datasheets for conventional Al alloys and Scalmalloy®, thus suggesting that longer ageing times are needed.


Author(s):  
Zhida Huang ◽  
Zongyue Fan ◽  
Hao Wang ◽  
Bo Li

Laser Powder Bed Fusion (LPBF) is an additive manufacturing method that manufactures high density and quality metal products. We present a coupled grain growth and heat transfer modeling technique to understand the materials microstructure evolution in metals during the cooling process of LPBF. The phase-field model is combined with a transient heat transfer equation to simulate the solidification and crystallization of the melt pool simultaneously. Specifically, the variable domain and driving force of the order parameters in the phase-field calculation are defined using current temperature distribution. Additionally, the latent heat generated by crystallization is introduced as a heat source to affect temperature evolution in the cooling process. The finite element method with a staggering strategy is employed to solve the coupled governing equations on an irregular computational domain. The computational framework is verified in a one-dimensional solidification problem by comparing the velocity of the fluid-solid interface. The two-way coupling solution of solidification and crystallization is studied in an example of LPBF of Aluminum alloys.


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