Effect of nanostructured Cu on microstructure, microhardness and wear behavior of Cu-xGnP composites developed using mechanical alloying

In the present study, Cu-1, 2 and 3 wt.% xGnP composites have been developed by powder metallurgy (PM) route using nanostructured Cu powder and their effect on microstructure, microhardness, sliding wear behaviour has been examined. The crystallite size and lattice strain of Cu after 25 h of mechanical milling have been found to be 16 nm and 0.576%, respectively. Major challenges associated with the development of Cu-xGnP composites is the uniform dispersion of the nanoplatelets in the Cu matrix, which have been dealt out by incorporating the nanostructured Cu- xGnP composites after mechanical alloying leading to the homogenous distribution of nanoplatelets in the Cu-matrix. A significant enhancement in relative density, microhardness and wear resistance of the Cu-3 wt. % xGnP nanofiller composite in particular has been observed due to the uniform distribution of the nanofillers. In Cu-3 wt. % xGnP composite developed using as-milled nanostructured Cu, a microhardness of ∼ 1.1 GPa could be achieved which is about ∼3 times higher than that of the pure sintered Cu sample (∼359 MPa). Nanostructured Cu also leads to enhancement of the hardness and wear property as compared to the as-received Cu. The wear mechanism in the various nanostructured Cu-xGnP composites has been studied in details.