United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority

Other

Michael George Nicholas

Charles Fraser Old

Brian Wilfred Howlett, Deceased

Peter M Scott

Thomas M Valentine

Bruce I Dewar

The invention relates to the use of ternary alloys in brazing ceramics. Brazing is a process of limited usefulness in the fabrication of ceramic components because of the inability of many alloys to wet industrially important ceramics. A possible solution is the metallizing of ceramics but this has technical and economic disadvantages. Alloys are known which wet ceramics but they do not necessarily give good bond strength. The following alloys have now been devised which both wet ceramics and give good bond strength, e.g., greater than 40 MNm.sup.-2 at room temperature, with unmetallized ceramics. The alloys are:

Ternary alloys in brazing ceramics

A method of bonding diamond to a metal capable of dissolving carbon but not of forming stable carbides under normal temperature and pressure conditions, preferably nickel, which includes the step of intimately contacting the diamond with the metal to form a composite structure and heat treating the composite structure at a temperature above 500.degree. C but below the melting temperature of metal, both steps being carried out in a non-oxidizing atmosphere.

Method of producing nickel coated diamond particles

Bearings including a layer of a bearing metal, e.g. a lead/tin alloy, in which continuous or discontinuous carbon fibres are incorporated and are concentrated at or near the bearing surface. The proportion of carbon fibres at or near the bearing surface is from 2 to 60 .sup.v /o. A method of making shell bearings of this type comprises providing a trough of a backing material for the bearing carrying a continuous longitudinal tow of carbon fibres, pouring into the trough a molten bearing metal at a temperature at which it wets the carbon fibres, and cooling and solidifying the bearing metal with the carbon fibres incorporated therein. The carbon fibres may be coated, e.g. with copper, to enable them to be more readily wetted by the molten bearing metal.

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Wantage, United Kingdom

Michael George Nicholas