Additive Manufacturing Design of an Argon Condenser Made with Pure Copper Powder for High-Purity Physics Applications: Technological Issues

Additive Manufacturing (AM) techniques give to designer great freedom as the possibility to rethink the classic geometrical shapes of common objects and it is well suitable for experimental physics research, where components production is based on unique prototype with high specialization and characteristics. In this paper, an AM design process of a heat exchanger for the condensation of argon using liquid nitrogen under cryogenics condition is proposed. The development of the condenser is part of the activities related to the “DarkSide” experiment. The work describes the AM approach considering the re-design of the condenser geometrical shape, the functional and performance constraints together with a focus on the technological issues of the processing of a pure copper powder with Selective Laser Melting (SLM) technology. Unfortunately, it was found that there are still technological issues related to the SLM process of pure copper due to its low-density and its high internal porosity.