Experimental study on capillary and mechanical properties of a porous nickel–copper composite

ABSTRACT

A novel porous nickel–copper composite was designed and fabricated by sintering a mixture of a high-porosity open-cell copper foam plate and fine nickel powder. The microstructure of the porous nickel–copper composite was characterised by the scanning electron microscope. The effects of sintering temperature and dwelling time on the sintering shrinkage, sintered porosity, capillary performance and mechanical properties of the porous composite and monoporous sintered nickel powder were investigated experimentally. The nickel–copper composite presented significant lower sintering shrinkage, higher porosity, lower tensile strength and better capillary performance than the sintered nickel powder under all sintering conditions. The sintering temperature has more influence than the dwelling time on both the capillary performance and tensile strength of the sintered composite.

KEYWORDS:

• Capillary
• mechanical
• porous
• nickel
• composite
• sintering
• copper foam
• powder

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Rui Zhou http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4069-2366

Additional information

Funding

This project is supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant number 51505159], Guangdong Natural Science Foundation [grant number 2016A030310438], China Postdoctoral Science Foundation [No. 2018M640797].