Experimental study on the mechanical properties of oxygen-free copper used in high energy physics detectors and accelerators

Abstract

Abstract Oxygen-free copper (OFC) is widely used in high energy physics detectors and accelerators. The mechanical properties of OFC, such as stress–strain relation and impact toughness, are of great importance when designing OFC-based load-bearing shielding tanks or structural components. In order to study the mechanical properties of OFC, tensile and impact tests were separately carried out in the present work. The relations between the type and rolling direction of the material and its mechanical properties were intensively studied. Subsequently, a modified two-stage Ramberg–Osgood (R–O) model was used to fit the tensile test data. The results show that the nonlinearity of the stress–strain curve of OFC was pronounced. Although the yielding stage of OFC was not obvious, this material showed a ductile behavior. The rolling direction had a significant effect on the tensile properties of the OFC sheet, but had an insignificant effect on the impact toughness. OFC tubes possessed similar strength levels, but inferior ductility compared to the OFC sheets in the longitudinal rolling direction. The modified R–O model is suitable to describe the constitutive relation of OFC.