Manufacture, Structure and Properties of Copper Foams

Abstract

The raw materials used for manufacturing copper foams are the metal and a carbonate in powder form. Copper foams are fabricated by mixing metal and carbonate powder, sintering, and removing carbonate processing. The effect of Cu particle size, compacting pressure on the porosity of porous samples are analyzed. With SEM and EDS, particles binding and microstructure evolution during sintering are studied, and the mechanical properties of porous samples are measured. Results show that copper foams with the porosity of 60 % ~85 % are successfully prepared, pore size 50~1000㎛.The porosity of copper foams decreases with the pressure increasing and copper particle size decreasing at same volume fraction of copper powder . The compressive strength of copper foams decreases with the porosity raising, for the copper foam of 80% porosity, the compressive strength up to 20-30Mpa.The electrical conductivity of copper foams decreases with porosity increasing. Thermal expansion coefficient α of copper foams increases from 17 to 19*10-6 .K-1 when temperature rising from 50°C to 100°C.