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.