Tribological behavior of heat treated CuCrZr alloy

Optimal combination of strength, ductility and conductivity in CuCrZr alloy can be achieved by suitable heat treatment involving solution annealing at high temperature to dissolve alloying elements, water quenching to produce a super-saturated solid solution, and an aging treatment at an intermediate temperature to produce fine precipitates giving rise to high strength. In this study, Cu-1Cr-0.1Zr alloy was manufactured as cast material and following hot forging, solution annealing and aging were applied conventionally. In order to enhance the precipitation kinetics, solution annealed and quenched alloy was cold deformed and then aged at the same condition. Specimens obtained after (i) casting, (ii) conventional solution annealing and aging and (iii) aging after cold deformation were investigated in order to determine microstructural features, hardness and tribological properties. The results showed that while heat treatment process increased hardness the of cast specimen, it was enhanced further with deformation before aging. Besides hardness, tribological properties of the cast specimen were improved further by deformation before aging