Investigation of electrophysical and mechanical characteristics of porous copper-carbon composite materials prepared by spark plasma sintering

Abstract

Copper-carbon composites are attractive materials for electrical applications, such as contact strips for pantographs and collector shoes in electric railways and brushes for motor technology. Because the copper-carbon composites combine the positive characteristics of both components, i.e. thermal and electrical conductivity from the copper and low thermal expansion coefficient and resistivity properties from the carbon. In this report the porous copper-carbon composite material with optimal ratio was prepared and electrophysical, mechanical characteristics were investigated. The specimens were sintered by spark plasma sintering technique which allowed preparing the specimens for short time. The copper-carbon composites samples were prepared with using additional sodium oleate and sodium chloride admixtures for making porous structure. The sintering pressure and temperature are one of the important parameter which influences the properties of the specimens. After sintering for making porous structure the prepared composite samples were treated in boiled deionized water where remained organic materials dissolved in liquid solution. It was shown that the physical, mechanical, electrical properties and porosity degree are directly depends from the initial size of the powders, and material composition. In particular, at different pressure, and applying the optimal copper-carbon ratio (Cu-C) was fabricated porous samples from copper-derived composites where used carbon source and electrolytic grade copper powder. The structural and composition parameters and the obtained composite samples fabricated by spark plasma sintering technique have been investigated by micro-hardness tester, hall system, density tester, optical microscope, XRD and FE-SEM