Additive manufacturing of copper and copper alloys for accelerating systems.

In accelerating systems components, complex shapes are typically needed to satisfy the design requirements and to achieve the best in-operation performance from both the material and the pieces. Additive Manufacturing (AM) is a growing area of interest and represents a promising solution, able to replace conventional technologies and manufacturing processes, especially for materials that show very interesting properties for some specific applications, such as pure copper and copper alloys. Even though, many drawbacks are still limiting the applicability of AM. Some very complex prototypes, like acceleration grids for negative ions and SRF Nb-coated copper cavities, which are characterized by several critical design aspects, have been successfully printed and preliminary tests have been carried out. In this work, material properties of copper and copper alloys, manufactured by means of different AM machines, are summarized: density, thermal conductivity and mechanical properties. In addition, a focus on AM technology is done to show the printability of such components, and post-manufacturing processes are studied in order to achieve the best design targets.