Microstructure and arc erosion behaviors of Ag-CuO contact material prepared by selective laser melting

In this paper, selective laser melting (SLM) was employed to fabricate the Ag-CuO electrical contact materials with high energy ball milled Ag-CuO composites powders. Microstructure characteristics and arc erosion behaviors of the Ag-CuO material prepared by SLM were investigated. Vickers microhardness and conductivity tests were conducted to determine the mechanical properties of the samples. The make-andbreak testing was carried out to determine the arc erosion behavior of the samples. The experimental results prove that the conductivity and microhardness change little after conducting make-and-break experiments and meet the need for low voltage devices. It was found that the SLM process will produce the holes and cracks of the Ag-CuO sample. However, the SLM Ag-CuO samples show excellent self-repairing characteristics. With the increase of the make-and-break testing, the flow of silver molten pool enhances and repairs the holes and cracks of SLM Ag-CuO samples. Meanwhile, the anti-arc erosion performance was improved during the flow of the arc eroded molten pool enhances. The current research demonstrated that the SLM Ag-CuO samples exhibit potential as electrical contact materials, which will also provide a new idea for the development of contact materials processing. (C) 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

This paper investigates the microstructure characteristics, mechanical properties, and arc erosion behavior of Ag-CuO materials prepared by SLM, showing that they exhibit excellent self-repairing characteristics and are suitable for low voltage devices.