Design of High-Strength, High-Conductivity Alloys

Computer-aided design of alloys is becoming increasingly useful, replacing the completely experimental approach. The computer-aided approach significantly reduces the cost of alloy design and more easily leads to optimum properties by reducing the amount of experimentation. Design of high-strength, high-conductivity alloys is a good example of the efficacy of using the computer to design experimental alloys.Alloys that have both high strength and high electrical conductivity are needed for many applications such as lead frames, connectors, conducting springs, and sliding contacts. Figure 1 shows the strength and conductivity of some commercially available copper-based alloys. Since dissolved solutes in an otherwise pure metal rapidly reduce the electrical conductivity (as well as the thermal conductivity), solid solution strengthening is not suitable for designing this class of alloys. Such alloys must be designed on the basis of precipitation or dispersion hardening. The theory of the yield stress of alloys with precipitates or dispersed phases has been well-formulated and may be used for alloy design. The solubility of the hardening phase in the matrix must be very small. Otherwise the conductivity will be degraded too much. Nordheim's rule relates conductivity to dissolved solute in alloys and is also available for alloy design. Decreasing the dissolved solute increases the conductivity and strength due to an increase in the volume fraction of the precipitate.