Mechanical properties,electrical conductivity and microstructure of CuCrZr alloys treated with thermal stretch process

CuCrZr alloys were treated with the thermal stretch process at various temperatures from 100 to 300℃.The results reveal that the thermal stretch process is successfully developed to manufacture the precipitation hardening CuCrZr alloys with a good combination of microhardness and electrical conductivity.By increasing the tensile elongations at each temperature from 100 to 300℃,the microhardness increases whereas the electrical conductivity decreases slightly.Cr-containing precipitate phases with a Nishiyama-Wasserman orientation relationship to the copper matrix were observed by TEM.The achievement of high micro-hardness and acceptable electrical conductivity in the thermal stretch treated alloys is ascribed to the interactions of the heteroatom solution,dislocation increment,grain refinement and dispersive precipitation effect.

Flow behaviour constitutive model of CuCrZr alloy and 35CrMo steel based on dynamic recrystallization softening effect under elevated temperature

In order to study the effect of dynamic recrystallization on the metal flow behavior during thermal deformation,the elevated temperature compression experiments of CuCrZr alloy and 35CrMo steel are carried out using Gleeble-3810 thermal simulator.It is proved that the samples underwent obvious dynamic recrystallization behavior during thermal deformation by microstructure observation of deformed specimens.The size of recrystallized grains increases as the temperature improved and the strain rate decreased.Meanwhile,the net softening rate caused by dynamic recrystallization is determined based on the stress-dislocation relationship.It can be found that the value of net softening rate increases quadratically as the Z parameter decreases,and the dynamic recrystallization net softening rate of CuCrZr alloy and 35CrMo steel are calculated to be 21.9%and 29.8%,respectively.Based on the dynamic recrystallization softening effect proposed,the novel elevated temperature flow constitutive models of two different alloys are proposed,and the related parameters are well defined and solved in detail.The predicted values of the obtained models are agreed well with the experimental values.

Effect of the ITER FW Manufacturing Process on the Microstructure and Properties of a CuCrZr Alloy

The first wall （FW） is one of the core components in ITER. As the heat sink material, the CuCrZr alloy shall be properly jointed with beryllium and stainless steel. At present, the grains of CuCrZr are prone to coarsen seriously in the thermal cycle process of FW manufacturing, which has become a critical issue for ITER parties. To investigate the mirostructure and mechanical properties of the optimized CuCrZr alloy in the first wall fabricating thermal cycle, simulative experiments have been done in this study. The alloy ingot was forged and hot rolled into plates, and then solid solution annealed, cold rolled and aged for strengthening. Several heat treatments were done to the CuCrZr samples, and the changes of microstructure, micro-hardness and tensile strength were investigated. The results indicated that the original elongated grains had changed into equiaxed ones, and the vickers hardness had declined to about 60 after experiencing the process of CuCrZr/316L（N） bi-metallic plate manufacturing, either by hot isostatic pressing at a higher temperature or by explosion welding followed by solution annealing. Joining Be/CuCrZr by hot isostatic pressing acts as an aging process for CuCrZr, so after the simulated heat treatment, the hardness of the alloy increased to about 110 HV and the tensile yield strength at 250℃ rose to about 170 MPa. Meanwhile, the average grain size was controlled below 200μm.

Nanostructures and nanoprecipitates induce high strength and high electrical conductivity in a CuCrZr alloy

The mixed nanostructure mainly consisting of nanotwins and nanograins was obtained in a solid solution CuCrZr alloy by means of dynamic plastic deformation at cryogenic temperature.After subsequent aging treatments,the precipitation of Cr at nanometer scale provided further strengthening and brought substantial recovery of electrical conductivity.The aged nanostructured CuCrZr alloy exhibited a high tensile strength of 832MPa and a high electrical conductivity of 71.2%IACS.The details of precipitation tuned by nanotwin boundaries were demonstrated in this work.The combined strengthening of nanostructures and nanoprecipitates was discussed.