Electrical conductivity and tensile properties of low content SiC-Cu composite by in situ synthesis

The SiC–Cu composites were successfully in-situ synthesized by high-energy ball milling and spark plasma sintering using Cu, Si, and C powders as initial materials. The effect of SiC content by mass on the microstructures and properties of SiC–Cu composite was studied. The phase constituent and microstructures of SiC–Cu composite were characterized by field-emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM) equipped with energy disperse spectroscopy (EDS), and the electrical conductivity and tensile strength were tested as well. The results show that, the Cu–SiC composites can be prepared by in situ synthesis method. When the theoretical mass fraction of SiC is less than 1%, the electrical conductivity of SiC–Cu composite decreases progressively with the increase of SiC content, and the electrical conductivity reaches the maximum value as 70.2%IACS; but the tensile strength of SiC–Cu composite increases at first and then dramatically decreases, the tensile strength reaches the extremum of 207.4 MPa when the theoretical mass fraction of SiC is 0.3%.