Breaking the trade-off relation of strength and electrical conductivity in pure Al wire by controlling texture and grain boundary

The trade-off relation between the strength and electrical conductivity in the Al conductor is a significant scientific issue. Breaking such trade-off relation is an interesting challenge for preparing the Al conductor with high strength and good electrical conductivity. In this study, an abnormal strength-electrical conductivity relation was achieved during the deformation of the cold-drawn Al wires. In particular, the interesting finding is that both the grain boundary and texture obviously influence the strength-electrical conductivity relation, i.e., the elongated grains with the strong < 111 > texture does not only promote the strength (74.2 MPa), but also improve the electrical conductivity (0.31 %IACS). This new finding proves that the elongated grains and the strong < 111 > texture can be designed and applied to prepare the Al conductor with high strength and high electrical conductivity. Furthermore, an experiment was designed to verify the mechanism, and the results show that the newly prepared commercially pure Al wire (CPAW) owns a higher electrical conductivity (similar to 63.0 %IACS) in comparison with the traditional CPAW (similar to 62.0 %IACS). (C) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.