Effect of yttrium on properties of copper prepared by powder metallurgy

• The Cu–Y composites were prepared successfully.
• It is the first time to add yttrium powder to improve the performance of copper.
• The relative density of Cu–Y composites are closed to the theoretical density.
• Both the hardness and oxidation resistance of copper improved.

In this paper, Cu–Y composite materials containing different content of Y were prepared with optimized hot-press and cold-press forming process based on L9 (34) orthogonal experiment and their physicochemical and mechanical properties including relative density, conductivity, oxidation resistance and hardness were been tested. The results indicate that the optimum preparation condition was: sintering temperature 800 °C, sintering time 3 h, pressure 30 MPa, Y-doping concentration 0.5 wt.% for hot-press forming and sintering temperature 880 °C, sintering time 3 h, pressure 600 MPa, Y-doping concentration 0.5 wt.% for cold-press forming. The addition of yttrium can improve the hardness and oxidation resistance of copper significantly and has the opposite effect on conductivity. The overall performances and process conditions of samples prepared by hot-press forming were significantly superior to those of cold-press forming.

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