Effect of Cyclic Pre-deformation on Uniaxial Tensile Behavior of Cu-16 at. pct Al Alloy with Low Stacking Fault Energy

To explore the effect of cyclic pre-deformation on static mechanical behavior of materials with different stacking fault energies (SFEs), polycrystalline Cu-16 at. pct Al alloy with a low SFE is selected as the target material in the present work, and the strengthening micro-mechanisms induced by cyclic pre-deformation are compared with the previous studies on pure Al with a high SFE and Cu with an intermediate SFE. The results show that the movement of dislocations exhibits a high slip planarity during cyclic pre-deformation at different total strain amplitudes Delta epsilon (t)/2, and some nano-sized deformation twins are formed after subsequent tension. The cyclic pre-deformation at an appropriate Delta epsilon (t)/2 of 1.0 x 10(-3) promotes a significant increase in ultimate tensile strength sigma (UTS) nearly without loss of tensile ductility, which primarily stems from the introduction of many mobile planar slip dislocations by cyclic pre-deformation as well as the formation of nano-sized deformation twins during subsequent tension. Based on the comparison of the strengthening micro-mechanisms induced by cyclic pre-deformation in Al, Cu, and Cu-16 at. pct Al alloy, it is deduced that a low-cycle cyclic pre-deformation at an appropriate condition is expected to cause a better strengthening effect on the static tensile properties of low SFE metals.