Production of Al/Cu-Particles and their Potential for Processing by Laser Beam Melting (LBM)

To investigate the potential of Laser Beam Melting (LBM) in powder bed process for wrought aluminium-copper alloys, tailor-made particles with a varying amount of copper on the particle surface are produced by decomposition of copper acetate (CuOAc). Decomposition of CuOAc and coating of the Al-particles are performed in a fluidized bed reactor (FBR) with nitrogen as carrier gas. Since heat and mass transfer in an FBR are regarded as ideal, no concentration gradients are observable which is preferable for gas-phase deposition processes. The amount of deposited Cu on the Al-particles has been investigated using different methods.Hereby also the growth mechanism has been investigated. The influence of the copper deposition on absorptivity is determined using integration spheres.