Abstract

It is well known that the Cu-Cr alloys are very difficult to be made by conventional sintering methods. This difficulty originates both from limited solubility of Cr in the Cu matrix and from limited sintering temperature due to high vapor pressures of Cr and Cu components at the high temperature. Densification of Cu-50%Cr Powder compacts by conventional Powder metallurgy Process has been studied. Three kinds of sintering methods were tested in order to obtain high-density sintered compacts. Completely densified Cu-Cr compacts could be obtained neither by solid state sintering method nor by liquid phase sintering method. Both low degree of shrinkage and evolution of large pores in the Cu matrix during the solid state sintering are attributed to the anchoring effect of large Cr particles, which inhibits homogeneous densification of Cu matrix and induces pore generation in the Cu matrix. In addition, the effect of undiffusible gas coming from the reduction of Cu-oxide and Cr-oxide was observed during liquid phase sintering. A two-step sintering method, solid state sintering followed by liquid phase sintering, was proved to have beneficial effect on the fabrication of high-dendsity Cu-Cr sintered compacts. The sintered compacts have properties similar to those of commercial products.