Evolution of defect structures during cold rolling of ultrafine-grained Cu and Cu–Zn alloys: Influence of stacking fault energy

Samples of pure Cu, bronze (Cu–10 wt.% Zn) and brass (Cu–30 wt.% Zn) with stacking fault energies (SFE) of 78, 35, and 14 mJ/m2, respectively, were processed by high-pressure torsion (HPT) and by a combination of HPT followed by cold-rolling (CR). X-ray diffraction measurements indicate that a decrease in SFE leads both to a decrease in crystallite size and to increases in microstrain, dislocation and twin densities for the HPT and HPT + CR processed ultrafine-grained (UFG) samples. Compared with processing by HPT, subsequent processing by CR refines the crystallite size of all samples, increases the twin densities of UFG bronze and brass, and increases the dislocation density in UFG bronze. It also decreases the dislocation density in UFG brass and leads to an unchanged dislocation density in UFG copper. The results suggest there may be an optimum stacking fault energy for dislocation accumulation in UFG Cu–Zn alloys and this has important implications in the production of materials having reasonable strain hardening and good tensile ductility.