Effect of the oxygen content of pure copper powder on selective electron beam melting

Additive Manufacturing using Selective Electron Beam Melting is attractive to fabricate pure copper components due to the specific properties of the electron beam. In this contribution, two different copper powder batches with different oxygen levels are processed. The samples produced using the powder with high oxygen level show cracks, whereas samples from the powder with low oxygen content are crack-free. The mechanical properties of the crack-free samples are investigated and compared to wrought and annealed copper.