Research on high-temperature compression and creep behavior of porous Cu–Ni–Cr alloy for molten carbonate fuel cell anodes

The effect of porosity on high temperature compression and creep behavior of porous Cu alloy for the new molten carbonate fuel cell anodes was examined. Optical microscopy and scanning electron microscopy were used to investigate and analyze the details of the microstructure and surface deformation. Compression creep tests were utilized to evaluate the mechanical properties of the alloy at 650 °C. The compression strength, elastic modulus, and yield stress all increased with the decrease in porosity. Under the same creep stress, the materials with higher porosity exhibited inferior creep resistance and higher steadystate creep rate. The creep behavior has been classified in terms of two stages. The first stage relates to grain rearrangement which results from the destruction of large pores by the applied load. In the second stage, small pores are collapsed by a subsequent sintering process under the load. The main deformation mechanism consists in that several deformation bands generate sequentially under the perpendicular loading, and in these deformation bands the pores are deformed by flattering and collapsing sequentially. On the other hand, the shape of a pore has a severe influence on the creep resistance of the material, i.e. every increase of pore size corresponds to a decrease in creep resistance.