Abstract
Most copper rods are now produced using continuous casting and rolling and the process conditions possibly influence the state of the material and the subsequent finishing processing properties of the wires. An attempt has been made to study the correlation between the state of the material and the cold drawability of copper rods produced using various processes. The deformation behaviour of copper wires drawn to various strains was determined, and strength, strain hardening rate, and ductility were compared. Strain softening was observed at large drawing strains (ε>4) as a result of dynamic recovery, which starts at lower drawing strains with increasing oxygen content of the material. Inclusions (mainly Cu20 particles) were examined using a Quantimet image analyser. It was found that inclusion density increases with increasing oxygen content and average inclusion aspect ratio remains about constant with increasing cold drawing strain.
MST/1094
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