Fils conducteurs nanostructurés (cuivre et composites nanotube de carbone - cuivre) pour application en champs magnétiques intenses

摘要

In order to produce high magnetic fields (100 T), the conducting wires used in pulsed coils must show both a high tensile strength and very low electrical resistivity. The LNCMI and NNC team of CIRIMAT explore creative solutions based on the development of nanostructured copper wires and carbon nanotube - copper (CNT-Cu) nanocomposite wires by the original combination of spark plasma sintering (SPS) and room-temperature wire-drawing (WD). Copper cylinders were prepared by SPS of micrometric commercial powders. Crystal growth is very low and the copper grains size is 10 times lower than for conventional wire precursors. The cylinders were wire-drawn, without breaking, into wires of decreasing diameter (down to 0.198 mm) and several meters long. The ultrafine Cu grains are highly elongated in the WD direction. No twinning was observed. Our copper wires show an ultimate tensile strength (UTS) at 293K and 77K higher than those for wires prepared from conventional OFHC copper, which could result from the combination of strain hardening and Orowan mechanisms. The electrical resistivity is about 12% higher than those for the OFHC wires. For the CNT-Cu nanocomposites, an adaptation of preparation route (functionalization of double-walled and eight-walled CNTs, mixing, freeze-drying, H2 reduction) resulted in the production of 14 g powder batches with a homogeneous dispersion of the CNTs. Due to the very low carbon content (= 1%), the preparation of the cylinders and wires by the methods used for pure copper is possible without modification. The UTS of the CNT-Cu wirers is 10-25% higher than for the corresponding copper wires. The CNTs have little influence on the Cu microstructure and their probable alignment allows one to benefit from their high tensile strength. The electrical resistivity is only moderately higher than for the corresponding copper wires (about 12% at 77K). The last chapter was devoted to the preparation of "dog-bone" Cu and CNT-Cu test samples by "near-net-shape" SPS. We have brought to the fore the influence of the nature of the die (graphite or WC-Co) on the microstructure, microhardness and tensile strength, for the same sintering cycle.