Effects of heat treatment processes on the microstructures and properties of powder metallurgy produced Cu–Ni–Si–Cr alloy

To obtain optimal microstructures and properties of a powder metallurgy produced (P/M) copper alloy, this research designed a series of solution and aging heat treatment parameters for a P/M Cu–7.4Ni–1.3Si–1.2Cr alloy. After heat treatment, the variation in their microstructures, thermal properties and mechanical properties were investigated. crostructure analysis suggested that the hardness or tensile strength increased after an aging heat treatment due to the large number of nanometer-sized precipitates of β-Ni3Si and δ-Ni2Si phases that were formed. The optimal heat treated P/M copper alloy (8-h solution heat treatment at 970 °C followed by 6-h aging at 450 °C) had an extremely good combination of an average sub-grain size (<30 μm), an average tensile strength (up to 820 MPa) and an average thermal conductivity (110 W/mK), which offers possibilities for application in mold tooling.