Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• van der Merwe, Ryno
• Bissett, Hertzog
• van der Walt, Jaco I
• Cornish, Lesley A

Titel

Induction Melting of Three CuAl Alloys for Good Homogeneity for Powder Spheroidization

Ist Teil von

• Journal of materials engineering and performance, 2023-09, Vol.32 (17), p.7651-7663

Ort / Verlag

New York: Springer US

Erscheinungsjahr

2023

Quelle

Alma/SFX Local Collection

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Copper alloys are typically produced by conventional casting processes, as well as spark plasma sintering (SPS), which often produce inhomogeneous mixtures and unwanted intermetallic phases. This paper presents an induction melting technology, which should provide good mixing, controlled heating and melt stirring, potentially improving homogeneity. Homogeneous melts should produce homogeneous powders, with constant properties. This powder was spheroidized for increasing powder flow and particle packing for applications such as additive manufacturing (AM). A density test was developed to ascertain homogeneity of the solidified product to improve potential AM component quality. Al-33Cu, Al-50Cu and Al-67Cu (at.%) buttons were produced by high-frequency (HF) induction melting, to give better mixing and hence phase distributions. The phases and their distributions were studied using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy-dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (EDX), x-ray diffraction (XRD) and absolute density using helium pycnometry. There was acceptable homogeneity found in the Al-33Cu sample, but not in Al-50Cu and Al-67Cu samples. This was attributed to Al loss (due to evaporation), complex solidification mechanisms and phase density segregation.