A high-strength,ductile Al-0.35Sc-0.2Zr alloy with good electrical conductivity strengthened by coherent nanosized-precipitates

Ductility and electrical conductivity of metallic materials are inversely correlated with their strength,resulting in a difficulty of optimizing all three simultaneously. We design an Al-Sc-Zr-based alloy using semisolid extrusion to yield a good trade-off between strength and ductility along with excellent electrical conductivity. The Al-0.35Sc-0.2Zr wire with a diameter of 3 mm exhibited the best combined properties： a tensile strength of 210 ± 2 MPa, elongation of 7.6% ± 0.5%, and an electrical conductivity of 34.9 ± 0.05 MS/m. The average particle size of nanosized Al3（Sc, Zr） precipitates increased from 6.5 ± 0.5 nm to 25.0 ± 0.5 nm as the aging time increased from 1 h to 96 h at 380 °C, accompanied by the corresponding volume fraction variation from（6.2 ± 0.1） × 10^（-4） to（3.7 ± 0.1） × 10^（-3）. As proved by transmission electron microscopy observation, the high strength originates from the effective blockage of dislocation motion by numerous nanosized Al3（Sc, Zr） precipitates whilst both electrical conductivity and ductility remain at a high level due to the coherent precipitates possessing an extremely low electrical resistivity.

Effect of pre-annealing prior to cold rolling on the precipitation,microstructure and magnetic properties of strip-cast non-oriented electrical steels

A novel processing route involving strip casting, pre-annealing treatment, cold rolling and recrystallization annealing was applied to a Fe-2.6%Si steel to improve the magnetic properties. The impact of as-cast strip pre-annealing on the microstructure, texture, precipitation and magnetic properties were investigated by electron probe micro-analysis, transmission electron microscopy, and X-ray diffraction analysis,etc. It was found that the precipitation of second-phase particles during strip casting was restrained by rapid solidification. The absence of pre-annealing led to the occurrence of a large amount of 20-50 nm Mn S precipitates in the final annealed sheets, which is responsible for fine grains and high core loss（4.01 W/kg） due to grain boundary pinning effect. Although the microstructure and texture of 900-1000？C pre-annealed samples were similar to those of as-cast strip, significant grain coarsening together with the strengthening of-fiber texture was observed in the 1100？C pre-annealed strips. In comparison with the case of as-cast strip, a higher amount of large-sized precipitates consisting of manganese sulfide and/or aluminum nitride occurred in matrix after pre-annealing. Correspondingly, in the final annealed sheets, the number density of precipitates with sizes smaller than 100 nm was substantially reduced, and100-200 nm and 200-500 nm sized particles became more dominant in samples subjected to 30-min and 120-min pre-annealing treatments respectively. In addition, the average grain size of final annealed sheets increased with the pre-annealing temperature and time because of the weakened pining effect of coarsen precipitates. Ultimately, the magnetic induction of samples subjected to pre-annealing was slightly increased and ranged from 1.73 T to 1.75 T owing to the enhancement of {100} recrystallization texture, and simultaneously the core loss significantly decreased until a minimum of 3.26 W/kg was reached. Nevertheless, large number of 200-500 nm particles presented during pre-annealing for 120 min could weaken the improvement in core loss which is likely associated with the pinning effect on magnetic domain wall.

Precipitation Behavior of Cu-1.9Be-0.3Ni-0.15Co Alloy During Aging

In this paper,the evolutions of microstructure and mechanical properties of Cu-l.9Be-0.3Ni-0.15Co alloy were studied.The alloys in the condition of the solution treated（soft state） and 37% cold rolled（hard state） were aged at 320 ℃for different time,respectively.The mechanical properties,electrical conductivity and microstructure of the alloy aged for different time were analyzed.Additionally,the precipitation kinetics of Cu-1.9Be-0.3Ni-0.15Co alloys was investigated.X-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy results reveal that both continuous precipitation and discontinuous precipitation existed in the hard-state Cu-l.9Be-0.3Ni-0.15Co alloy during the whole aging process;the sequence of continuous precipitation is G.P.zone →γ″→γ′→γ.Furthermore,the precipitation transformation mechanism of softstate alloy is homogeneous nucleation,while hard-state alloy shows the heterogeneous nucleation（interface nucleation）with the nucleation rate of both states decaying rapidly to zero during aging at 320 ℃.