The paper investigated the possibility of obtaining large-sized blocks of C11000 copper on stainless steel substrates via electron beam wire-feed additive technology. The features of the microstructure and grain texture formation and their influence on the mechanical properties and anisotropy were revealed. A strategy of printing large-sized C11000 copper was determined, which consists of perimeter formation followed by the filling of the internal layer volume. This allows us to avoid the formation of defects in the form of drops, underflows and macrogeometry disturbances. It was found that the deposition of the first layers of C11000 copper on a steel substrate results in rapid heat dissipation and the diffusion of steel components (Fe, Cr and Ni) into the C11000 layers, which promotes the formation of equiaxed grains of size 8.94 ± 0.04 μm. As the blocks grow, directional grain growth occurs close to the <101> orientation, whose size reaches 1086.45 ± 57.13 μm. It is shown that the additive growing of large-sized C11000 copper leads to the anisotropy of mechanical properties due to non-uniform grain structure. The tensile strength in the opposite growing direction near the substrate is 394 ± 10 MPa and decreases to 249 ± 10 MPa as the C11000 blocks grows. In the growing direction, the tensile strength is 145 ± 10 MPa.
Keywords: additive manufacturing; copper alloys; electron beam wire 3D printing; large-sized blocks; microstructure; texture.