Effect of Thermomechanical Processing on the Microstructures and Mechanical Properties of Cu-28Zn-2Al Alloys

Abstract

This research was conducted to investigate the effect of thermomechanical process on microstructures and mechanical properties of Cu-28Zn-2Al alloys. Thermomechanical process was carried out by cold rolling process with 70% thickness reduction and followed by annealing process with variation temperature of 400°C, 500°C and 600°C. The result show that the β phase and shear bands are found in the samples. Further, cold rolling process can increase hardness of Cu-28Zn-2Al alloys from 100 to 172 VHN. The heat treatment with annealing process at 400°C tend to decrease the tensile strength of cold rolled samples from 695 to 472 MPa and more decreased until 422 MPa at 600°C. In contrast, annealing process at 400°C tend to increase the elongation from 10 to 28% and more increased up to 56% at 600°C. This phenomenon prove that the annealing process will increase ductility of cold rolled samples of Cu-28Zn-2Al alloys.