Copper Plating on SiCp by Cooling Crystallization and Its Effects on the Spreading and Infiltration of AlSi12 Alloy Melt

Abstract

A new cooling crystallization method is applied to plate copper on SiCp. Cu(NO3)2·3H2O is crystallized on SiCp by decreasing the solution temperature, and is heat‐treated to obtain CuO coating which is finally reduced to copper coating. Based on the optimizing of SiCp content and CuO reduction temperature, the effects of copper plating on SiCp on the spreading and infiltration of AlSi12 alloy melt are studied. The results show that the optimum coating effect is achieved when the SiCp content is 11.63% and the reduction temperature of CuO is 475 °C. The spreading area of AlSi12 alloy melt on the 15 μm copper‐coated SiCp increases by 53.27% compared to the uncoated SiCp when holds at 950 °C for 20 min, indicating that copper plating has a significant improvement on the wettability of AlSi12 melt and SiCp. Additionally, infiltration preparation of copper‐plated SiCp/Al alloy composites is achieved at a pressure of 0.3 MPa, but not under pressureless conditions. The main reason for this is the granular Cu on SiCp cannot form a complete Cu film. Therefore, the formation of complete Cu films on SiCp is presumed to be an important development direction for solving the problem of infiltration preparing ultrathick SiCp/Al composites.