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Chinese metal additive manufacturing equipment maker Eplus3D has collaborated with Young-Will Aerospace to validate a laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) process for copper-nickel (CuNi) alloy aerospace components.
The project produced crack-free parts with a tensile strength of 570 MPa, 18% above what conventional forging achieves for the same alloy. The result is worth pausing on, because nickel-copper alloys have long carried a reputation as difficult candidates for powder bed processing.
Copper tends to segregate at grain boundaries during laser fusion, and if that segregation is not managed carefully, cracks follow. The fact that the team eliminated cracking entirely suggests the process window they established is genuinely stable, not marginal.
Nickel-copper alloy metal powder material