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

Abstract 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-and-break 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.