Testing of Copper Based Journal Bearing Fabricated with Powder Metallurgy Method

Abstract

Journal bearings can be manufactured by several manufacturing processes such as PM, casting, coating and so on. In the presented research PM process has been selected, although the developed compositions can be manufactured with other manufacturing processes. Powder metallurgy is the manufacturing science of producing solid parts of desired geometry and material from powders. Powders are compacted into certain geometry then heated, (sintered), to solidify the part. Nowadays lead-free bronze based and copper based composites with the newly developed Tribology alloy additives are being used for manufacturing of Journal Bearing material. Hence, this project is aimed to develop copper-based journal bearing materials with Graphite as additive. The copper is added with 9% & 10% tin in addition with graphite percentage 1% & 1.5%. The specimens are fabricated using the powder metallurgy (PM) and isostatic pressing & then sintered in a Nitrogen environment. The tests were performed on the fabricated specimen’s viz. microstructure test, hardness test, density test, braking load. The microstructure shows more amount of Graphite increases porosity also, increase in the amount of Graphite leads to a decline in hardness. The effect of more Graphite amount decreases the breaking load capacity & density of the material. The experimental results show that the composition Cu-90-10Sn-1%Graphite has greater strength.