Claims
- 1. A method for the manufacture of a copper alloy, comprising the steps of:
- a) casting a copper alloy containing chromium, zirconium and less than about 0.25%, by weight, of nickel;
- b) heating said copper alloy for at least partial homogenization;
- c) following step (b), hot rolling said copper alloy to an area reduction in excess of about 50% and then immediately quenching said copper alloy;
- d) cold rolling said copper alloy to an area reduction in excess of about 25%;
- e) solutionizing said copper alloy thereby removing coarse second phase precipitates from the alloy;
- f) cold rolling said copper alloy to final gauge; and
- g) after step (f) aging by heating said copper alloy.
- 2. The method of claim 1 wherein said copper alloy cast in step a contains chrominum in an effective amount to increase hardness to about 0.8%, by weight and zirconium in an amount of from about 0.05% to about 0.4%, by weight.
- 3. The method of claim 1 wherein steps d and f are repeated with intermediate resolutionizing recrystallization anneals following each repetition.
- 4. The method of claim 1 wherein said precipitation aging step g is at a temperature of from about 350.degree. C. to about 600.degree. C. for from about 30 minutes to about 4 hours.
- 5. The method of claim 4 further including a homogenization anneal at from about 350.degree. C. to about 650.degree. C. for from about 15 minutes to about 8 hours between steps c and d.
- 6. The method of claim 4 further including a homogenization anneal at from about 350.degree. C. to about 650.degree. C. for from about 15 minutes to about 8 hours between steps d and e.
- 7. The method of claim 1 wherein step a is by strip casting and step c is omitted.
- 8. The method of claim 7 including also omitting step b.
- 9. The method of claim 1 wherein said copper alloy cast in step a consists essentially of from an effective amount to increase strength up to about 1.0% by weight chromium, from about 0.05% to about 0.40% by weight zirconium, from about 0.1 to about 1.0% by weight of "M" where "M: is selected from the group consisting of cobalt, iron, nickel and mixtures thereof with a maximum nickel content of about 0.25% by weight, and from about 0.05% to about 0.7% by weight titanium where the atomic ratio of "M" to titanium, M:Ti, is from about 1.2:1 to about 7.0:1.
- 10. A method for the manufacture of a copper alloy, comprising the steps of:
- a) casting a copper alloy containing chromium, zirconium and less than about 0.25%, by weight, of nickel;
- b) homogenizing said copper alloy;
- c) following step (b), hot rolling said copper alloy to an area reduction in excess of about 50% and then immediately quenching said copper alloy;
- d) cold rolling said copper alloy to an area reduction in excess of about 25%;
- e) solutionizing said copper alloy thereby removing coarse second phase precipitates from said copper alloy;
- f) cold rolling said copper alloy;
- g) age hardening said copper alloy at a temperature sufficiently low to essentially avoid recrystallization;
- h) cold rolling said copper alloy to final gauge; and
- i) stabilizing said copper alloy by annealing.
- 11. The method of claim 10 wherein said copper alloy cast in step a contains chromium in an effective amount to increase hardness to about 0.8%, by weight and zirconium in an amount of from about 0.05% to about 0.40%, by weight.
- 12. The method of claim 11 wherein steps f and g are repeated at least one time.
- 13. The method of claim 11 including quenching said copper alloy following at least one of steps e and i.
- 14. The method of claim 13 wherein said age hardening step g is at a temperature of from about 350.degree. C. to about 600.degree. C. for from about 30 minutes to about 5 hours.
- 15. The method of claim 14 further including a homogenization anneal at from about 350.degree. C. to about 650.degree. C. for from about 15 minutes to about 8 hours between steps c and d.
- 16. The method of claim 14 further including a homogenization anneal at from about 350.degree. C. to about 650.degree. C. for from about 15 minutes to about 8 hours between steps d and e.
- 17. The method of claim 14 wherein said stabilization relief anneal step i is a strand anneal at a temperature of from about 300.degree. C. to about 600.degree. C. for from about 10 seconds to about 10 minutes.
- 18. The method of claim 14 wherein said stabilization relief anneal step i is a bell anneal at a temperature of from about 250.degree. C. to about 400.degree. C. for from about 1 to about 2 hours.
- 19. The method of claim 10 wherein said copper alloy cast in step a consists essentially of from an effective amount to increase strength up to about 1.0% by weight chromium, from about 0.05% to about 0.40% by weight zirconium, from about 0.1 to about 1.0% by weight of "M" where "M: is selected from the group consisting of cobalt, iron, nickel and mixtures thereof with a maximum nickel content of about 0.25% by weight, and from about 0.05% to about 0.7% by weight titanium where the atomic ratio of "M" to titanium, M:Ti, is from about 1.2:1 to about 7.0:1.
- 20. The method of claim 11 wherein step a is by strip casting and step c is omitted.
- 21. The method of claim 20 including also omitting step b.
- 22. A method for the manufacture of a copper alloy, comprising the steps of:
- a) casting a precipitation hardenable copper alloy consisting essentially of from about 0.001% to about 2.0% by weight chromium, from about 0.001% to about 2.0% by weight zirconium, and less than about 0.25% by weight of nickel whereby said copper alloy, following processing, is free of coarse second phase precipitates;
- b) heating said copper alloy for at least partial homogenization;
- c) hot rolling said copper alloy to an area reduction in excess of about 50%;
- d) cold rolling said copper alloy to an area reduction in excess of about 25%;
- e) recrystallizing said copper alloy for a first time;
- f) cold rolling said copper alloy to a cross sectional area reduction of from about 40% to about 90%;
- g) recrystallizing said copper alloy for a second time at a temperature effective to produce the desired aging response during precipitation aging;
- h) cold rolling said copper alloy;
- i) precipitation aging said copper alloy;
- j) cold rolling said copper alloy to final gauge; and
- k) stabilizing said copper alloy by annealing.
- 23. The method of claim 22 wherein the temperature for recrystallization in step e and in step g is independently between about 500.degree. C. and the solidus temperature of said copper alloy.
- 24. The method of claim 23 wherein the temperature for recrystallization in step e and in step g is independently between about 800.degree. C. and 950.degree. C.
- 25. The method of claim 23 wherein the dwell time for recrystallization in step e and step g is independently between about 5 seconds and 16 hours.
- 26. The method of claim 25 wherein the dwell time for recrystallization in step e and step g is independently between about 30 seconds and 5 minutes.
- 27. The method of claim 26 wherein the precipitation aging temperature of step i is from about 350.degree. C. to about 600.degree. C. and the dwell time is from about 15 minutes to about 16 hours.
- 28. The method of claim 24 wherein said alloy is selected to consist essentially of 0.4%-1.2% by weight chromium, 0.08%-0.2% zirconium, 0.03%-0.06% magnesium and the balance copper.
- 29. The method of claim 24 wherein said alloy is selected to consist essentially of from an effective amount to increase strength up to about 1.0% by weight chromium, from about 0.05% to about 0.40% by weight zirconium, from about 0.1 to about 1.0% by weight of "M" where "M: is selected from the group consisting of cobalt, iron, nickel and mixtures thereof with a maximum nickel content of about 0.25% by weight, and from about 0.05% to about 0.7% by weight titanium where the atomic ratio of "M" to titanium, M:Ti, is from about 1.2:1 to about 7.0:1.
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION
This application is a Division of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/233,147 U.S. Pat. No. 5,486,244 by Caron et al that was filed on Apr. 25, 1994. U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/233,147, now U.S. Pat. No. 5,486,244 is a continuation in part of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/135,760 filed Oct. 18, 1993 now U.S. Pat. No. 5,370,840 by Caron et al. which is a continuation in part of Ser. No. 971,499 filed Nov. 4, 1992 now U.S. Pat. No. 5,306,465 to Caron et al.
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Related Publications (1)
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971499 |
Nov 1992 |
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Divisions (1)
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233147 |
Apr 1994 |
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Continuation in Parts (1)
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135760 |
Oct 1993 |
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