Microstructures and properties of Al2O3 dispersion-strengthened Cu10Sn oil bearings prepared by solid-liquid doping and reactive synthesis method

Abstract

To modify the shortcomings of Cu10Sn oil bearing in mechanical performance, this work proposes to prepare the Al2O3 oxide dispersion strengthened (ODS) Cu10Sn oil bearings by reactive synthesis using elemental Sn and Al2O3 ODS-Cu powder, among which the uniformly doped Al2O3 ODS-Cu powder was synthesized through a solid-liquid doping of Al(NO3)3 in CuO powders followed with hydrogen reduction. The effects of Al2O3 content on the microstructure and properties of ODS-Cu powder and ODS-Cu10Sn oil bearings were investigated in details. The results showed that an increase in Al2O3 amount from 0 to 1.5 wt% leads to a decrease in the average particle size of the reduced ODS-Cu powders, and contributes to the significant improvement of radial compressive strength, and Vickers microhardness. The appropriate sintering temperature is approximately 800 °C, which can result in the evenly distributed Al2O3 and well-developed porosity in oil bearing sample after sintering. The corresponding compressive strength and microhardness of ODS1.5-Cu10Sn oil bearing can reach 305 MPa and 208 HV respectively.