The Effect of Precipitation Hardening on Room Temperature tensile properties of Cu-2%Be-0.20 % Co

Copper and its alloys are one of the most important industrial alloys. Among the copper alloys, Cu-Be binary alloys are aged hardenable and exhibit high age-hardening response during isothermal aging treatment. Cu-2%Be was chosen to study the effect of aging time and temperature on the microstructure and room temperature tensile properties. Sheet specimens were aged up to 2 hours at selected temperatures between 260 and 400 ºС. The results of room temperature uniaxial tensile test showed that the YS and UTS were enhanced about 46% and 64% and decreasing elongation about 35% with increasing of aging time and temperature up to the 350 ºС and 120 min. The improvement in tensile properties was attributed to the precipitation that formed during the isothermal aging. However, in the sample aged at 400 ºС, the YS and UTS increased rapidly after 30 min and decreased thereafter due to over aging. In all condition the value of elongation decreased during the aging treatment

Keywords:

Cu-Be alloys , Precipitation Hardening , Mechanical properties , Tensile test