Mechanical behaviour and thermal stability of multi-axially compressed copper

Abstract

In the present study coarse grained (CG) annealed copper is subjected to multi-axial compression (MAC) process up to 9 passes to analyse its mechanical behaviour and thermal stability. The samples are characterized by optical microscopy to analyse microstructure evolution and grain size during MAC process. Mechanical properties like hardness and tensile strength have been evaluated by conducting the hardness and tensile test at ambient temperature. Microstructural examinations reveal the reduction in grain size with increase in number of passes which contributes to enhanced hardness and strength of copper. Tensile fractured specimens are examined under scanning electron microscope (SEM) to analyse the mode of failure with increasing number of MAC passes. Fractured micrographs reveal the ductile mode of failure in annealed and lower pass sample which is further converted to mixed mode (ductile and brittle) as the number of passes increased. Thermal stability of processed copper is also analysed by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) analysis and results reveal reduction in thermal stability with increase in number of MAC passes. The evaluated properties of processed copper are correlated with microstructures.