CHARACTERIZATION OF SiC PARTICLE REINFORCED COPPER MATRIX COMPOSITE WITH COPPER WIRE STRUCTURE

Composites have become a very important class of materials in our everyday life. In the present work, the effect of a copper wireframe structure in SiC particle reinforced copper matrix composites on the compressive strength and other physical properties was analysed. SiC particle reinforced copper matrix composites with and without a copper wireframe structure were fabricated by the powder metallurgy method and sintering was performed at 700 degrees C in atmospheric condition. The copper wire used for making the wireframe structure has diameters of 0.2 and 0.3 mm. A scanning electron microscope (SEM) with magnification of 500X was used to characterize the sintered composites. In addition, hardness tests were performed on a Vickers hardness testing machine and compression testing was carried on a UTM machine. It was observed that the formation of Cu reinforced with 5-7 wt.% SiC and 0.1-0.2 wt.% copper wireframe structure composites was successful. It can be concluded that the hardness of the Cu-SiC composite rises with the increase in the wt.% of reinforcement, while the copper wireframe structure in the composite had a negligible effect on the hardness. However, the addition of the copper wireframe structure resulted in increased compressive strength.