In the case of copper and its alloys, Wire Arc Additive Manufacturing (WAAM) 3D printing technology is mainly used to produce elements for the maritime industry and research has focused on the use of Cu-Al alloys. There is little information devoted to the use of Cu-Ni alloys in this technology, which are also widely used in the maritime industry. In this work, tests were carried out on the microstructure, mechanical properties, and corrosion properties in a 1M NaCl solution of Cu-Ni 90/10 alloy 3D walls printed using the WAAM method. The obtained objects are characterized by a microstructure with elongated column grains and particles of the Ni-Ti phase, hardness in the range of 138–160 HV10, ultimate tensile strength of 495–520 MPa, yield strength of 342–358 MPa, elongation of 16.6–17.9%, and a low average corrosion rate of 7.4 × 10⁻⁵ mm/year. The work shows that it is possible to obtain higher mechanical properties of Cu-Ni 90/10 alloy 3D objects produced using the WAAM method compared to cast materials, which opens up the possibility of using this alloy to produce objects with more complex shapes and for use in corrosive working conditions.

The continuous industrial development that occurs worldwide generates the need to develop new materials with increasingly higher functional properties. This need also applies to the basic material for electricity purposes, which is copper. In this article, we carry out studies on the influence of various alloying elements such as Mg, In, Si, Nb, Hf, Sb, Ni, Al, Fe, Zr, Cr, Zn, P, Ag, Sc, Pb, Sn, Co, Ti, Mn, Te and Bi on the electrical and mechanical properties of ETP-grade copper. The research involves producing copper alloys using the gravity die casting method with alloy additions of 0.1 wt.%, 0.3 wt.% and 0.5 wt.%. All resulting materials are cold-worked to produce wires, which are subsequently homogenized and annealed. The materials produced in this manner undergo testing to determine their specific electrical conductivity, tensile strength, yield strength, elongation and Vickers hardness (HV10 scale).

Intensive research is underway worldwide to develop new conductive materials for applications in the power industry. Such tests aim to increase the electrical conductivity of materials for conductors and cables, thus increasing the current carrying capacity of the line and reducing the loss of electricity transmission. The scientific discovery of recent years, graphene, one of the allotropic types of carbon with very high electrical and thermal conductivity and mechanical strength, creates great opportunities for designing and producing new materials with above-standard operational properties. This project concentrates on developing technology for manufacturing aluminum-graphene and copper-graphene composites intended to be used to produce a new generation of power engineering conductors. In particular, we present the results of the research on the mechanical synthesis of aluminum-graphene and copper -graphene composites, as well as the results of the electric, mechanical, and structural properties of rods obtained after the extrusion process and wires after the drawing process.

Today’s world is a place where lack of electrical energy would be unimaginable for most of society. All the conductors in the world, both aluminum and copper, have their origin in various types of casting lines where the liquid metal after crystallization is being processed into the form of wires and microwires. However, the efficiency of the continuous casting processes of metals and the final quality of the manufactured product strictly depend on the design of the used crystallizers, the materials used during its production and its quality. Research conducted in this paper focuses on the latter, i.e., external surface quality of the graphite crystallizer at the place of contact with the primary cooling system. In order to quantify its influence on the continuous casting process numerical analyses using the finite element method has been conducted, which results have been further confirmed during empirical tests in laboratory conditions. It has been proven with all of the proposed methods that the temperature of the obtained cast rod is closely linked to the aforementioned surface quality, as when its roughness coefficient surpasses a certain value the temperature of the obtained product increases almost twofold from approx. 150–170 °C to 300–320 °C. These values might influence the quality and final properties of the cast rod, the susceptibility to wire drawing process and possible formation of wire drawing defects and therefore be of much importance to the casting and processing industry.

The diffusion boriding process allows to increase the abrasion and corrosion resistance of the majority of steel grades. The aim of this study was to determine the influence of the chemical composition of the substrate of various steel grades ...

The boride coatings are characterized by attractive set of properties such as high hardness and wear resistance, corrosion resistance in higher temperatures and no wettability by liquid metals like aluminum and zinc. This type of coating might be used for manufacturing of different parts from tool steels. In present article the influence of pack boriding time (2, 4, 6h) on microstructure and phase composition of obtained coatings is scrutinized. The pack boriding process was conducted on two groups of cold work tool steels: low-Cr content: 145Cr6, 90MnCrV8, 60WCrV8 and high-Cr content: X165CrV12, X153CrMoV12. The commercial boriding pack Ekabor 2 was utilized and the process was carried out using industrial CVD device (Bernex BPX Pro 325S). The conducted research showed that the boride coatings formed on the substrate of high-chromium steels were characterized by a lower total thickness. On low-chromium steels, FeB phase was discontinuous as an irregular islands located in the near-surface area. On the other hand, for high-chromium steels, a continuous layer of needle-like borides was formed.