DEVELOPMENT OF A NEW MATERIAL FOR ELECTRICAL CONTAINS BASED ON Nb-15% pCu AND ITS METHOD OF MANUFACTURING, OBTAINED BY HIGH ENERGY MILLING AND SINTERIZED BY SPS
Powder metalogy, High energy grinding, Sintering.
Several materials are currently used for the production of electrical contacts, heat sinks and coils with characteristics similar to those of the Nb and Cu alloy studied in this work. For the Nb-Cu system the solubility between them can be neglected, thus there is a great difficulty to be able to form a refractory metal composite between these two elements and due to this reason the powder metallurgy was the processing route used in this work. This work aims to analyze the use of high energy grinding with and without cryogenics in the densification and electrical conductivity of sintered bodies via SPS (Spark Plasma Sintering). Two Nb and Cu powders containing 15% by weight of Cu and then milled by MAE in a planetary mill were prepared. The first powder was ground during the times of 1, 2 and 5 hours and the second was ground cryogenically for 26 hours. The evolution of the powders was obtained and analyzed by SEM, EDS, XRD and IMAGE J. After the samples of the powders ground for 1.2 and 5 hours were sintered in liquid phase via SPS at temperatures of 1100, 1400 and 1600 ° C. The powders ground for 26 hours were sintered via SPS at temperatures of 1000 ° C and 1100 ° C. The microstructures were observed and evaluated by CONFOCAL, SEM, EDS, XRD, EBSD, Computed Tomography, Vickers hardness, density and electrical conductivity. Densified samples were obtained in up to 99.8% of the theoretical density for the sintered bodies of the ground powders without cryogenics and 98.5% for the sintered bodies of the ground powders.