In this study, an Al-0.7wt%Fe-0.2wt%Mg-0.2wt%Cu-0.02wt%B alloy was designed to fabricate an aluminum alloy for electrical wire having both high strength and high conductivity. The designed Al alloy was processed by casting, extrusion and drawing processes. Especially, the drawing process was done by severe deformation of a rod with an initial diameter of 12 mm into a wire of 2 mm diameter; process was equivalent to an effective strain of 3.58, and the total reduction in area was 97 %. The drawn Al alloy wire was then annealed at various temperatures of 200 to 400 °C for 30 minutes. The mechanical properties, microstructural changes and electrical properties of the annealed specimens were investigated. As the annealing temperature increased, the tensile strength decreased and the elongation increased. Recovery or/and recrystallization occurred as annealing temperature increased, and complete recrystallization occurred at annealing temperatures over 300 °C. Electric conductivity increased with increasing temperature up to 250 °C, but no significant change was observed above 300 °C. It is concluded that, from the viewpoint of the mechanical and electrical properties, the specimen annealed at 350 oC is the most suitable for the wire drawn Al alloy electrical wire.
We report the crystallization and magnetic properties of non-equilibrium alloy powders produced by rod-milling as well as by new chemical leaching. X-ray diffractometry, transmission electron microscopy, differential scanning calorimetry and vibrating sample magnetometry were used to characterize the as-milled and leached specimens. After 400 h or 500 h milling, only the broad peaks of nano bcc crystalline phases were detected in the XRD patterns. The crystallite size, the peak and the crystallization temperatures increased with increasing Fe. After being annealed at for 1 h for as-milled alloy powders, the peaks of bcc are observed. After being annealed at for 1 h for leached specimens, these non-equi-librium phases transformed into fcc Cu and phases for the x=0.25 specimen, and into bcc phases for both the x=0.50 and the x=0.75 specimens. The saturation magnetization decreased with increasing milling time for alloy powders. On cooling the leached specimens from ,\;the magnetization first sharply increase at about for x=0.25, x=0.50, and x=0.75 specimens, repectively.