Precipitation Behavior of Plastically Deformed CuAgZr Alloy

CuAgZr alloy is well known for good compromise between high strength and high conductivity. The strengthening is mainly contributed by the self-aligned nanosize Ag precipitate on {111} planes in the Cu matrix. In this study, the nature of Ag precipitate in Cu-7wt%Ag-0.05wt%Zr during thermal processing is characterized to understand the alloy microstructures and thus improve its mechanical strength and electrical conductivity. The solution treated CuAgZr alloy samples were cold rolled with logarithmic strain of 2.3 and subsequently aged at various times. The complementary small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) techniques indicate the evolution of precipitate size during different thermal routines. The radius of gyration of precipitate estimated from SAXS measurement agrees with the measured size from TEM investigation. This paper discusses the effect of plastic deformation on the Radius of gyration size of nanoscale Ag precipitate.