Investigation on Strength, Ductility and Electrical Conductivity of Cu-4Ag Alloy Prepared by Cryorolling and Subsequent Annealing Process

Cu-Ag alloy is widely used as conductive material for high-field pulsed magnets in electrical industry. The cryorolling technique is considered as the most applicable severe plastic deformation technique. Therefore, in this study, cryorolling and subsequent annealing process were used to prepare Cu-4Ag (in wt.%) alloy sheets. The strength, ductility and electrical conductivity of Cu-4Ag alloy sheets were investigated. Microstructure of Cu-4Ag alloy was also studied by OM, SEM, XRD and TEM. As a result, the cryorolling specimens after annealing at temperature of 300 degrees C display a good combination of tensile strength of 652.2 +/- 6.0 MPa, moderate elongation of 12.5 +/- 0.7% and electrical conductivity of 80.6 +/- 0.2% IACS. This is due to the presence of dislocations, dislocation cells, nanograins and nanotwins in the non-recrystallized regions and fine nanoscaled silver precipitates. Besides, a good ductility is achieved in this condition due to its desirable ductile fracture characteristics.