Investigation of structural, mechanical, corrosion and neutron shielding properties of Cu-B4C composite materials

In this thesis, copper-boron carbide (Cu-B4C) metal matrix composites containing 5 wt%, 10 wt%, and 20 wt% of B4C were produced by powder metallurgy and characterization studies were carried out. Cu-B4C composites were obtained after high energy ball milling at 150 rpm for 5 hours followed by uniaxial cold compression at 500 MPa for 1 minute and then sintering in a tube furnace at 600 ℃ for 1 hour. The structural properties of the composites were investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD), optical microscopy (OM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX). In addition, microhardness and electrochemical corrosion tests of the composites were carried out. The neutron absorption properties of the composites were simulated by Monte Carlo N-Particle (MCNP) and experimentally tested at an Am241-Be neutron source with an average energy of 4.5 MeV and a Canberra NP series BF3 gas neutron detector. From the results obtained, it was observed that B4C particles were homogeneously dispersed in the Cu matrix. It was observed that the Vickers microhardness and corrosion current values increased with increasing B4C content in the composites and the thermal neutron shielding performance of the samples improved.