Structural Investigations of Nanocrystalline Cu-Cr-Mo Alloy Prepared by High-Energy Ball Milling

Abstract

Cu-Cr-Mo alloy could be a suitable candidate material for collector electrodes in high-power microwave tube devices. An attempt has been made to synthesize ternary Cu-Cr-Mo alloys by mechanical alloying of elemental Cu, Cr, and Mo powders, to extend the solid solubility of Cr and Mo in Cu, using a commercial planetary ball mill. For the first ternary alloy, a mixture of 80 wt.% Cu, 10 wt.% Cr, and 10 wt.% Mo was mechanically milled for 50 h. For the second ternary alloy, a mixture of 50 wt.% Cr and 50 wt.% Mo was mechanically milled for 50 h to obtain nanocrystalline Cr(Mo) alloy, which was later added to Cu powder and milled for 40 h to obtain Cu-20 wt.%Cr(Mo) alloy. Both nanocrystalline Cu-Cr-Mo ternary alloys exhibited crystallite size below 20 nm. It was concluded that, with addition of nanocrystalline Cr(Mo) to Cu, it was possible to extend the solid solubility of Cr and Mo in Cu, which otherwise was not possible by mechanical alloying of elemental powders. The resulting microstructure of the Cu-20 wt.%Cr(Mo) alloy comprised a homogeneous distribution of fine and hard (Cr, Mo) particles in a copper matrix. Furthermore, Cu-20 wt.%Cr(Mo) alloy showed better densification compared with Cu-10 wt.%Cr-10 wt.%Mo alloy.