Porous Cu/Al composites for cost-effective thermal management

Abstract

Porous forms of Cu, Al and Cu/Al were prepared by powder metallurgy and the effect of process parameters on the microhardness, porosity and the cooling rate was examined. We report that although columnar powders are compacted more tightly under high compaction pressures, they also tend to form a connected pore network if a definite percentage porosity is maintained in the structure. Besides, the results show that the cooling rate differences between porous forms of Cu, Al and Cu/Al composites are not as dramatic as their bulk counterparts. Although the best cooling rate is achieved in pure Cu, the optimal condition in terms of cost-performance ratio was found to be the composite system with about 21.5% Al by response surface metholody based multi objective optimization, even when performance was assumed to be 3 times more important than the cost.