Additive manufacturing of Cu–10Sn bronze

Highly-dense bulk Cu–10Sn bronze specimens have been fabricated by selective laser melting (SLM) and their (micro)structure and mechanical properties have been investigated and compared with the corresponding material produced by casting. Room-temperature tensile tests reveal that yield and ultimate strengths increase from 120 and 180 MPa for the cast samples to 220 and 420 MPa for the specimens processed by SLM. Material strengthening is accompanied by a significant improvement of ductility, which increases from 7 to 17%. This behavior can be ascribed to the refined microstructure of the SLM material resulting from the high cooling rate imposed by laser processing, further demonstrating the effectiveness of SLM for the production of materials with enhanced mechanical performance.