Abstract
The electroless copper plating process on the powder of SiC has been investigated. Thickness of the coating was tailored by the amount of copper salt added in the bath with a molar ratio of 4∶1 between reducing agent of sodium hypophosphite and copper salt. It is also found that mixed complexing agent improves the smoothness of the coating surface. Compared with mechanical properties of the SiCp/Fe composites with and without copper coating, it is shown that the copper coating improves the tensile strength by 12·6% and the final elongation by 18·1% with the SiC volume fraction of 20%. Moreover, further investigation shows that the copper coating has a same effect on the tensile strength improvement as a similar nickel coating process but has a significantly better effect on improvement of the final elongation of the composite.
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