Effect of processing parameters on copper powder produced by novel hybrid atomisation technique

ABSTRACT

In the present work, a novel design of centrifugal atomiser for producing pure copper powder was studied. The novel complementary hybrid system provides an external stream of gas to increase the cooling rate of the atomised particles. Effects of the operating parameters, such as disc rotating speed and gas flowrate on the morphology, particle size distribution, cooling rate and microstructure, were analysed. It was evidenced from the experimental results that the median particle size in the novel atomisation process is mainly controlled by centrifugal disintegration. The microstructure of the produced powders was equiaxed and the grain size decreased with increasing gas flowrate. The cooling rate experienced by centrifugal atomised Cu powders was studied via numerical formulation estimated to be 10⁴–10⁶K s⁻¹. The results show that the cooling rate is a strong function of particle size and increasing the rotating disc speed also increased the cooling rates.

KEYWORDS:

• Centrifugal atomisation
• complementary hybrid system
• cooling rate
• microstructure
• metal powder

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributors

Sasha Alejandra Cegarra Salges is a Geophysical Engineer, currently a Ph.D. student at the Materials and Engineering Science Department of the Technical University of Catalonia. Her area of interest is metallic materials science and she is currently dedicated to the study of metallic powder materials produced by atomization processes at the Technological Centre EURECAT.

Jordi Pijuan is an Industrial Engineer from the Technical University of Catalonia (ETSEIAT-UPC). From 2010–2015 he has been an active researcher in Mechanical Engineering and holds a Ph.D. from Lleida Univesity (UdL). His area of interest is mechanical design and he is currently dedicated to the development of atomisation processes equipment’s at the Technological Centre EURECAT.

Ricardo Hernández is an Industrial Engineer, specializing in Mechanics and holds a master’s degree in Business Management. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate at the Materials and Engineering Science Department of the Technical University of Catalonia. He is an expert in metallic materials forming process design. He is also responsible of different research projects at the Technical Centre EURECAT.

María Dolores Riera is a Professor from the Material Science and Metallurgical Engineering department at the Technical University of Catalonia. She specializes in plastic deformation process design and materials mechanical modelling and numerical simulation.

ORCID

Sasha Alejandra Cegarra Salges http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4675-9931

Jordi Pijuan http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9498-0673

Maria Dolores Riera http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9733-416X

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Agència de Gestió d’Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca under grant number 2019 DI-19.]. Agència de Gestió d’Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca.