Abstract
This study was carried out to develop cadmium-free silver brazing alloys that meet the following requirements. First, these alloys have the melting point lower than that of the BAg-1 brazing alloy, of which the melting point is the lowest in the conventional brazing alloys. Second, they have not only good wetting characteristics and the ability to produce a sound joint with excellent mechanical properties but also the plastic formability.
Using the calculated phase diagrams on Ag-Cu-Zn-Sn quaternary alloys, the authors selected several alloys with the possibility for meeting the above requirements. The melting point and other properties such as hardness and brazeability of the selected alloys were evaluated. As a result, the authors successfully developed the silver-based brazing alloys that had the low melting point below about 600°C and met the above requirements by adding a small amount of indium as an alloying element into the Ag-Cu-Zn-Sn quaternary alloys. The newly developed brazing alloys were slightly inferior in wetting characteristics to BAg-1; however, the brazing alloy that contained about 3mass% indium showed the wetting characteristics comparable to BAg-1. Furthermore, the new brazing alloys could produce the joints with high tensile strength equivalent to about 83% of that of the joint brazed using BAg-1.
