Effect of Electric Current on the Inclusions in a Cu-Zn Alloy

Abstract

The effect of electric current pulse (ECP) treatment on lead inclusions in a Cu-Zn alloy was studied in present work. It was found that with the application of a critical high current density, the coarse and random distributed lead inclusions transferred into grain boundaries or defects in dispersed small particles. The reason was ascribed to the specific electric effect of electric current on the grain refinement and the reduction of the diffusive activation energy of lead inclusions. Therefore, the high current density ECP treatment might be an effective method to refine inclusions of bulk materials.

Effect of Grain Boundary Resistivity on Solid State Phase Transformation Induced by Electric Current Pulse in a Cold-Rolled Cu–Zn Alloy

“…(2). On the consideration that the diffusion activation energy could be enhanced by the application of electric current, 6) it is reasonable to assume that the different velocity could be ascribed to the effect of D 0 and Q. By evaluation, the change of Q by the different atomic displacement is 6.20, 5.75, 5.28 and 5.23 eV, respectively, for the four ECP treated samples.…”

“…4,5) Dai reported that the oriented nanotwins and segregation of lead were observed in ECP treated CuZn alloy. 6,7) Furthermore, Zhou found that the application of ECP could dramatically enhance the diffusion coefficient of a CuZn alloy. 8) However, the effects of current direction (CD) and the grain boundary resistivity on diffusion phase transformation induced by ECP have seldom been investigated.…”

Formation of Nanotwins in Cold-Rolled Cu-Zn Alloy by Electric Current Pulses

“…In fact, Zhang et al observed that in the coarse-grained Cu-Zn alloy subjected to the ECP treatment, a nanophase of about 11 nm was formed. 17) In our previous study, 8) the diffusivity of the Pb inclusions in a Cu-Zn alloy was significantly enhanced due to the ECP application. Based on the above theoretical analysis and the corresponding experimental results, it is reasonably deduced that diffusive phase transformation is induced in the ECP heating treatment.…”

“…[5][6][7] Our previous study also showed that inclusions in a Cu-Zn alloy were refined by the ECP treatment. 8) In the present study, the effects of ECP on the formation of nanotwins in a cold-rolled Cu-Zn alloy are described and the possible formation mechanism is discussed.…”

Solidification of Al Alloys Under Electromagnetic Pulses and Characterization of the 3D Microstructures Using Synchrotron X-ray Tomography

“…Recently, a number of pulsed magnetic field methods, such as pulsed magneto oscillation (PMO) [21] have been developed and showed the effectiveness in refining solidification microstructure of Al [22], Mg [19], Cu [23], Ti [24] alloys and Steels [25] with relatively low consumption of energy. However, most of the laboratory based research so far has applied the electro-magnetic pulses into a melt held in a stationary crucible [26,27].…”