Metal strip

Claim 1

A process for producing metallic strip containing discrete particles of one or more additional metallic or non-metallic materials uniformly dispersed in the strip, the process including the steps of: forming a slurry of a film forming cellulose derivative containing, in suspension, a quantity of ductile metallic particles and a lesser quantity of other metallic and/or non-metallic particles whose chemical composition and physical properties differ from those of the ductile metallic particles; mixing the slurry to disperse the ductile metallic particles and other particles uniformly within the cellulose derivative whereby the slurry comprises a substantially homogeneous mix of the ductile metallic particles and the other particles in suspension within the cellulose derivative; depositing a quantity of this slurry onto a support surface; heating the slurry to promote gelling of the cellulose derivative to retain the homogeneity achieved in the slurry; drying the slurry to form a self-supporting flat strip; removing the dried strip from the support surface; rolling the dried strip to effect compaction of the ductile content of the strip; and heating the dried self-supporting strip to a temperature at which the ductile metallic particles coalesce to form a matrix containing particles which either remain as discrete particles or are partially taken into solution with the matrix of ductile metal.