Laser-directed energy deposition (LDED) is one of the advanced techniques used for the sustainable manufacturing of engineering components with minimal material wastage and higher performance. This paper reports an investigation on LDED-based additive manufacturing of compositionally graded Copper (Cu)-stainless steel (SS) wall structures for improved performance of tooling components. Three different approaches, such as Cu-SS direct joint, 20% graded Cu-SS, and 50% graded Cu-SS, are used to build the wall structures. Optical microscopy of LDED-built graded samples reveals defect-free deposition of Cu-SS direct joint and 50% graded Cu-SS wall structures at identified process parameters, whereas the 20%-graded wall yields micro-cracks in the lower Cu region. The elemental distribution shows gradual traditions in the weight percentages of Cu and Fe along the built wall. Furthermore, the ultimate tensile strengths of the direct Cu-SS joint wall structure and the 50%-graded Cu-SS wall structure are higher than the strength of LDED-deposited Cu, while the 20%-graded Cu-SS wall structure has lower ultimate tensile strength than the strength of LDED-deposited Cu. Lower ultimate strength and failure in the lower-Cu zone of 20% graded Cu-SS wall structure can be attributed to the presence of micro-cracks in the Cu₂₀SS₈₀ zone of 20%-graded Cu-SS wall structures. The study establishes LDED as a technique for building multi-material components promoting sustainability in terms of manufacturing and component performance.

Laser Additive Manufacturing (LAM) is an advanced manufacturing processes for fabricating engineering components directly from CAD Model by depositing material in a layer by layer fashion using lasers. LAM is being widely deployed in various sectors such as power, aerospace, automotive etc. for fabricating complex shaped and customized components. One of the most commonly used LAM process is Directed Energy Deposition (LAM-DED) which is used for manufacturing near net shaped components with tailored microstructure, multi-materials (direct and graded) and complex geometry. This paper reports experimental investigation of LAM of Copper (Cu) tracks on Stainless Steel 304 L (SS 304L) using an indigenously developed LAM-DED system. Cu-SS304L joints find wider applications in tooling, automotive and aerospace sectors due to its combination of higher strength, thermal conductivity and corrosion resistance. However, laying Cu layers on SS304L is not trivial due to large difference in the thermo-physical properties. Thus, a comprehensive experiments using full factorial design are carried out and a number of Cu tracks were laid on SS304L substrate by varying laser power, scan speed and powder feed rate. The laid tracks are characterized for track geometry and porosity and the quality of the tracks are analyzed. Lower values of laser power and higher powder feed rate results in discontinuous deposition, while higher laser power and lower powder feed rate results in cracked deposits. Porosity is observed to vary from 6–45 % at different process conditions. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) of deposition rate and track geometry is performed to estimate the major contributing process parameters. This study paves a way to understand effect of process parameters on LAM-DED for fabricating bimetallic joints and graded structures of Copper and SS304L.