An investigation on the effect of sintering mode on various properties of copper-graphene metal matrix composite

Copper/graphene composites: a review

“…The results are, however, very dependent on the graphene content, the processing route and conditions as well as on the graphene derivative (Table 1). In summary, enhancements as high as * 93% for hardness [57], * 65% for the Young's modulus [43], * 233% for the yield stress [56] and * 48% for the tensile strength [35] have been reported.…”

“…Due to the low solubility of carbon in copper only mechanical locking between the two phases occur, the wrinkle structure of graphene plays an important role in enhancing the interlocking effect [13]. It has been confirmed experimentally that no reaction takes place between Cu and graphene during sintering at even 900°C [57]. However, wettability and thus chemical bonding can be promoted by the modification of the Cu powders or the graphene sheets [29,32,47,49,64,67].…”

“…Most researchers have used sintering to consolidate the composite powders. In a few works, green compacts, generally prepared using a press or a testing machine, were sintered in a conventional [38,52,57,63,65,73,104] or microwave furnace [57]. The major advantage of the microwave sintering over conventional sintering is that it provides rapid heating, resulting in much finer grain sizes.…”

“…However, graphene also has an effect on their degree of densification or relative densities (ratio of the measured experimental density to the maximum theoretical density). Hence, although Cu/graphene composites have high relative densities (usually higher than 96%), they are usually lower than that of the unreinforced matrix and decreases with increase in the graphene content [12,28,32,38,43,55,57,103]. This is usually attributed to the presence of graphene agglomerates because they form obstacles in composite consolidation, increasing the distance between Cu powder particles and thus reducing their sintering ability or restricting the matrix material to flow.…”

Graphene platelet reinforced copper composites for improved tribological and thermal properties

“…5 It is broadly recognized that the addition of secondary reinforcements with an excellent thermal property into the metal matrix is able to enhance both the tribological and thermal performances of the material and much effort has been devoted to producing self-lubricating Cu based matrix composites with outstanding heat dissipation. [12][13][14] Many reinforcing llers were selected and introduced in the Cu matrix. Chen et al fabricated niobium diselenide (NbSe 2 ) and carbon nanotube (CNT) strengthened Cu composites by a powder metallurgy process and investigated the friction behavior of the materials.…”