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Microstructures and mechanical properties of bulk nanocrystalline silver fabricated by spark plasma sintering

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Abstract

Bulk nanocrystalline (NC) silvers were fabricated by spark plasma sintering process. The effects of sintering temperature on physical and mechanical properties of the NC silvers were investigated. The results indicate that no impurities were introduced into the bulk compacts during the preparation procedure. Both the density and the electrical conductivity of the NC Ag increase with an increase in sintering temperature. However, the micro-hardness and ultimate tensile strength (UTS) of the bulk compacts increase initially and then decrease with increasing sintering temperature. The NC Ag sintered at 500 °C exhibits the highest micro-hardness of 85.3 HV along with the best compression yield strength of 379 MPa and the highest UTS of 534 MPa. The deterioration of the mechanical properties of the NC Ag sintered at 550 °C should be attributed to the rapid grain growth.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The authors acknowledge Prof. Hong-Nian Cai and Dr. Wei-Wei Chen for their fruitful discussions and suggestions during the preparation of this manuscript. The study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC, China) under Grant Number of 51374039.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Materials Science and Engineering, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing, 100081, People’s Republic of China

    Hu Wang, Xing-Wang Cheng, Zhao-Hui Zhang, Zheng-Yang Hu & Sheng-Lin Li

  2. National Key Laboratory of Science and Technology on Materials under Shock and Impact, Beijing, 100081, People’s Republic of China

    Xing-Wang Cheng & Zhao-Hui Zhang

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Correspondence to Zhao-Hui Zhang.

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Wang, H., Cheng, XW., Zhang, ZH. et al. Microstructures and mechanical properties of bulk nanocrystalline silver fabricated by spark plasma sintering. Journal of Materials Research 31, 2223–2232 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1557/jmr.2016.212

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