Elaboration of Architectured Copper Clad Aluminium Composites by a Multi-Step Drawing Process

Abstract

Architectured copper clad aluminium composites processed by a restacking drawing method at room temperature are reported in this work. Wires were drawn to severe plastic strain without any intermediate annealing. Three different diameters were studied in order to examine the influence of a different plastic deformation level on the structure of the different wires. Thanks to image processing it has been shown that independently of the plastic deformation, inserted fibers remain continuous and are homogeneous in size and shape. Furthermore, XRD and TEM characterizations confirm that there is no significant intermetallic growth during the deformation. Thus, the improvement and/or degradation of the functional properties of the wires can be well controlled by performing an appropriate post-processing annealing treatment. Keywords: Cu/Al composite, architectured wire, drawing, microscopy, image processing