Experimental investigation of industrial copper deformed by wire drawing process

Abstract

The scope of this work is to investigate the effect of the cold deformation by  wire-drawing on microstructure and physical properties of industrial copper wires. Copper wires were provided by E.N.I.CA.Biskra (Algeria). We investigated some wires with different strain levels (as received, 1.20, 2.10, and ε = 3.35). X-ray diffraction, optical microscopy, and electrical resistivity measurement have been used as characterization techniques. We analyzed the photographs using “ImageJ” software and DRX patterns using PM2K software. The results revealed that the cold wire-drawing causes a lengthening of grains along the axis of wire-drawing, and introduced large amounts of defects. The results also showed, on the one hand, the decrease in  crystallite size, lattice parameter, and the outer cut-off radius, on the other hand, the increase of the electrical resistivity and the dislocation density in the copper wires.

Keywords: Industrial copper; deformation; Dislocations; Shape factor; X-ray diffraction.