Mechanism investigation on high-performance Cu-Cr-Ti alloy via integrated computational materials engineering

In this work, the influence of different Ti additions on microstructure and property in Cu-Cr alloys has been studied and the primary relationship of processing-microstructure-property in Cu-Cr-Ti alloy has been constructed via the CALPHAD-based Integrated Computational Materials Engineering (ICME) approach and experimental validation. The peak-aged Cu-0.5Cr-0.2Ti alloy offers an excellent combination of hardness 192.6 HV, tensile strength 629.3 MPa, yield strength 603.0 MPa, electrical conductivity 51.3 %IACS and elongation 10.9 %. The calculated results suggest that the addition of Ti could promote the nucleation and hinder the growth of Cr precipitate in Cu-Cr-Ti alloys during aging treatment, which may promote the homogeneous formation of smallsize precipitate Cr and improve the strength of the Cu-Cr alloy. Microstructural characterization has validated the calculation results and revealed that the exceptional properties of this alloy are mainly attributed to nano-scale Cr precipitates achieved through the optimal thermomechanical processing from present ICME. Thus, the present ICME flowchart is applicable to design alloy composition and optimize the processing for the desired microstructure and property in engineering industries.