🔬 Heat treatment boosts strength & ductility in 3D-printed aluminum bronze

Skoltech and State Marine Technical University researchers have found a way to optimize a copper-aluminum-iron alloy for 3D-printing heat exchangers used in electronics across aviation, rocketry, and electric vehicles.

Pure copper is notoriously difficult for infrared laser 3D printing, while alloying elements can introduce microstructural inhomogeneities. The team identified the optimal postprocessing regimen: heating to 500 °C creates a stable structure with a strong balance of strength and ductility. Lower temperatures (300–400 °C) actually made the material more brittle.

“3D-printed aluminum bronze offers a good combination of thermal properties and control over geometry, but suboptimal mechanical characteristics may result from the printing process. This is a concern particularly in electronics used in rockets and other vehicles subjected to shock and vibration,”

explains lead author Anastasia Filippova, a PhD student in Skoltech’s Mathematics and Mechanics program.

“3D-printed materials always differ in microstructure compared to those processed by other techniques. A conventional method like heat treatment will not necessarily work — it required fine-tuning of the heating parameters,”

notes the principal investigator of the study, Associate Professor Stanislav Evlashin from the Center for Materials Technologies at Skoltech.

📖 Read the full study in the Journal of Alloys and Compounds.

Skoltech is a VEB.RF group institution.