Microstructural characterisation of CuAgZr powder particles produced by argon gas atomisation

ABSTRACT

CuAgZr alloy is known for its high strength and high conductivity, which are reasons for its wide application. In this work, CuAgZr powder alloys were produced by high-pressure argon gas atomisation. The results indicate that the surface morphology of the powder is a cellular crystal structure with a pentagonal crystal structure, with a ‘rose-like’ lattice and cross-shaped dendrites. A three-dimensional model of the primary dendritic changes in the CuAgZr alloy powder with different powder diameters was established by studying the surface morphology and internal microstructure of the powder. The relationship between the powder diameter and the powder cooling rate was established as the function of the primary dendritic length (PDL), the primary dendritic volume fraction (PDVF), the secondary dendrite arm spacing (SDAS) and the secondary dendritic volume fraction (SDVF). A confidence validation was performed, and the function fitting error is within 10%. The results establish that the function is meaningful.

KEYWORDS:

• CuAgZr alloys
• gas atomisation
• three-dimensional model
• equation fitting

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Mingyue Zheng: Born in 1985, PhD student. His research interests includes high performance metal powder gas atomization preparation technology and application research.

Shaoming Zhang is a professor. His research interest includes high performance metal powder materials.

Qiang Hu is a professor. His research interests include electronic packaging materials research and metal powder atomization technology.

Huijun He is a professor. His research interests include the preparation and industrial research of high quality metal powders.

Yanwei Sheng has obtained his PhD in engineering. His research interests include reparation and application of Metal Soft Magnetic Materials.

Xinming Zhao is a professor. His research interest includes high performance metal powder materials.

Additional information

Funding

We gratefully acknowledge the support of this project provided by the foundation item National Natural Science Foundation of China within the scope of [51004019].