Microstructural Evolution in the Unidirectional Heat Treatment of Cu-35%Sn Alloys

Cu-35%Sn 합금의 일방향 열처리에서 출현하는 미세조직

A specimen of Cu-35%Sn alloy has been subjected to the unidirectional heat treatment in an attempt to examine the evolution of microstructures under varying thermal conditions. The specimen was cast in the form of a cylinder 10 mm in diameter and 200 mm in length, which was then installed in the temperature gradient field established inside a vertical tube furnace. The furnace temperature was adjusted to make the upper part at $750^{\circ}C$ and bottom end part at $300^{\circ}C$ of the specimen. The experiment was terminated by dropping it into water after the 30 minutes holding at given temperature. By the rapid cooling, the high temperature phases, ${\gamma}$ and ${\zeta}$, were retained at ambient temperature with some of ${\gamma}$ phase transformed to ${\varepsilon}$ phase, especially at the grain boundaries of ${\gamma}$ phase. The presence of ${\varepsilon}$ phase was found to determine the nature of phase transformations of the ${\zeta}$ phase undergoes upon cooling. In the close area of the ${\varepsilon}$ phase, ${\varepsilon}$ phase grew separately out of ${\zeta}$, and adds to the preexisting ${\varepsilon}$ whereas in areas away from ${\varepsilon}$, both ${\delta}$ and ${\varepsilon}$ grew simultaneously out of ${\zeta}$, and formed a lamella eutectoid structure. The transformation to ${\delta}$ was found to occur only in slow cooling. The hardness on each phase showed that the retained phases, ${\gamma}$ and ${\zeta}$, could be plastically deformed without brittle fracture while the phases, ${\varepsilon}$ and ${\delta}$, were too brittle to be deformed.