Abstract

Hybrid material structures allow different material properties to be combined in one single component and thus to meet high functional requirements. When manufacturing such hybrid components, particular attention must be paid to the transition zones between metallic composite partners. These transition zones need to show largely homogeneous and materially bonded structures in order to ensure ideal transmission of the material properties and to prevent component failure due to material defects. In this respect, this paper focuses on a newly developed process in which a powder metallurgical route is combined with semi-solid forming technology. Here, porous copper green bodies are inserted into a forming die and subsequently forged together with a semi-solid aluminium alloy. In this way, it was tried to combine both metal materials into a material locking or at least into a form locking manner in order to achieve ideal material properties in the final hybrid component. The aim of this paper is to find suitable process parameters to infiltrate the porous copper inlay with the semi-solid aluminium alloy during thixoforming. Therefore, different process parameters such as varying liquid fraction of the aluminium alloy and different densities of the green bodies were examined during the production of simply shaped hybrid Al-Cu-components. Afterwards the infiltration depth and produced microstructure of the components was analysed. In the future, this process allows for producing aluminium-copper hybrid heat sinks with improved heat transfer properties compared to conventional produced heat sinks.

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