Development a Cu-based metal powder for selective laser micro sintering

Abstract

A Cu-based metal powder which consists of Cu and Cu-P alloy for selective micro laser sintering has been developed based on the theoretical analysis of the characteristics of the laser micro sintering metal powder. The characteristics of the wetting, capillary force and viscosity have been considered. The preliminary experimental investigation on the selective laser micro sintering Cu-based metal powder has been performed. A 50W CW Nd:YAG laser was employed to sinter the developed metal powder mixture. The sintering mechanism and the effect of the process parameters on the characteristics of the sintering samples have been preliminary investigated. The results show that the mechanism of laser micro sintering this developed metal powder is liquid-phase sintering and Cu-P alloy powder plays an effectively binder in the sintering process. The process parameter has significant effects on the characteristics of the sintering parts. From the SEM image, two different microstructures of samples with different scan spacing parameters were compared and a better binding effect was obtained at a parameter of 0.05mm scan spacing.