Anisotropic thermal expansion behaviors of copper matrix in β-eucryptite/copper composite

A β-eucryptite/copper composite was fabricated by spark plasma sintering process. The thermal expansion behaviors of Cu matrix of the composite were studied by in situ X-ray diffraction during heating process. The results show that Cu matrix exhibits anisotropic thermal expansion behaviors for different crystallographic directions, the expansion of Cu{1 1 1} plane is linear in the temperature range from 20 °C to 300 °C and the expansion of Cu{2 0 0} is nonlinear with a inflection at about 180 °C. The microstructures of Cu matrix before and after thermal expansion testing were investigated using transmission electronic microscope. The anisotropic thermal expansion behavior is related to the deformation twinning formed in the matrix during heating process. At the same time, the deformation twinning of Cu matrix makes the average coefficient of thermal expansion of the composite increase.