Effect of cold-working process on cyclic deformation of electrolytic copper

Abstract Cyclic softening and hardening processes are expressed by the change in the stress amplitude necessary to cause a given strain amplitude. Understanding the cyclic stress-strain behavior of materials is an important step in the complex study of their fatigue behavior. The potential differences between the defect structures of cold-formed materials may also be related to internal stress changes. Considering that wiredrawing and rotary swaging apply distinct forces on the material in order to obtain the product, differences may arise in the defect structures that can, consequently, affect its mechanical behavior. This study aims at evaluating and comparing, by means of strain-controlled fatigue tests, the cyclic behavior of polycrystalline electrolytic copper cold-formed by wiredrawing (WD) and rotary swaging (RS) with 87% area reduction. The fatigue test results evidenced the highest resistance to cyclic deformation presented by WD material in the low cycle regime. It was observed that the strain hardening for both cold forming conditions is related to a great increase of long-range stresses in the defect structure and the cyclic softening is related, mainly, to the subsequent drop of that stresses. The WD internal stresses resulted slightly bigger than those of the RS condition.