R A Chilton Ltd are a Specialist Copper Electroplating Company. Our expertise is in thick copper electroforming on to steel, and we specialise in producing solid copper rotors on steel shafts.

Copper has excellent electrical conductivity making it ideal for use in induction Motors, where it can be used to produce a more efficient motor compared to aluminium laminated rotors. It is also a good alternative to rare earth magnet motors where resources are limited and supply could become more difficult in the future. Copper is very easy to recycle so preserving the resources we have available.

Copper is also great for electrical contacts. On materials such as titanium where there is a resistance due to the oxide layer the surface oxide can be stripped off and sealed with copper to mantain a good contact area and prevent the oxide reforming.

Copper also has excellent thermal conductivity making it useful in heat exchangers. R A Chilton electroplate copper onto carbon tube for this purpose.

Electroplated copper has a strength and hardness far in excess of copper produced by other methods. Annealed copper has a hardness range 40-65Hv, and a tensile strength of 200-250N/mm2. Fully cold worked copper improves this to 100Hv and 360N/mm2(source Copper Alliance).

Our standard electroplated copper has a typical tensile strength of 450-550N/mm2. With careful control of additives, strengths of 600-700N/mm2 can be achieved.

The hardness of our electroplated copper is attributed to its fine grained structure and regularly achieves 180-220Hv.

R A Chilton have our own test equipment used for research and for continuous improvement of our process.

The grain size of electroplated copper is far smaller than cast or wrought copper. With properly controlled plating additives the grain size can be maintained below 0.001mm

Electroplated copper displays some resistance at temperatures where cold worked copper would anneal. With careful additive control in the plating bath the hardness and tensile strength can be maintained at higher operating temperatures than cold worked copper. In fact we do all our tensile testing after a short heat treatment, and our hardness testing trials are conducted at intervals over an extended period of heating to establish the effect of heat over time. This helps to account for the heat that a copper rotor will experience during its lifetime.