<p>Abstract</p><p>The aluminum-magnesium-silicon&nbsp;alloy 6201 is a&nbsp;popular&nbsp;overhead&nbsp;electrical conductor that&nbsp;combines&nbsp;high tensile strength&nbsp;and&nbsp;electrical conductivity.&nbsp;Its light weight makes its mass conductivity&nbsp;twice that of copper.&nbsp;It also has an ampacity equal to that of copper. It&nbsp;has&nbsp;high workability;&nbsp;It&nbsp;can be easily extruded, rolled, drawn, and formed.Aluminum conductors however experience creep, corrosion and other drawbacks.&nbsp;Therefore, it has become a requirement for manufacturers to improve mechanical&nbsp;and&nbsp;electrical&nbsp;properties of the&nbsp;alloy, mainly tensile strength and electrical conductivity.&nbsp;In&nbsp;this study, different methods and techniques&nbsp;were&nbsp;investigated to produce wires of improved tensile strength and electrical conductivity. The relationships between processing, properties and performance of this type of alloys&nbsp;were&nbsp;studied in order to fully understand them and hence improve the performance of the material.&nbsp;A 9.5 mm diameter rod of the alloy was&nbsp;cold drawn to&nbsp;a&nbsp;wire of&nbsp;3.5 mm diameter.&nbsp;The wire was then solution heat treated at 510 ºC for an hour then artificialy aged at a temperature range 150-200ºC for 2-24 h.&nbsp;Results show that an as-received wire has the maximum tensile strength of 310 MPa and the lowest electrical conductivity of 52.5 %IACS. The high tensile strength is expected due cold working which produces large number of dislocations. Electrical conductivity is at its lowest value influenced by the presence of alloying elements, high number of dislocations, and the small grain size. Solution heat treatment increase grain size and decreases the number of dislocations. Therefore, tensile strength decreases to 200 MPa and electrical conductivity increases to 56 %IACS. Artificial aging resulted in various values of tensile strength and electrical conductivity. Tensile strength results show no correlation with artificial aging conditions (temperature, time). Low tensile strength was achieved after low aging conditions (211 MPa, 150&nbsp;ºC for 2 h) whereas high tensile strength value was achieved at average aging conditions (302 MPa, 165ºC for 8 h). On the other hand, electrical conductivity shows proportional relationship with aging conditions; the higher the aging conditions are, the higher is the electrical conductivity. 60 %IACS is the maximum electrical conductivity that was achieved after artificial aging at 200ºC for 13h.&nbsp;This an indication that precipitation has occurred, where large number of alloying elements have been consumed. The aging conditions are high enough so that stresses are released, increasing grain size and decreasing number of dislocations. Therefore, the&nbsp;alloying elements consumption, the increase in grain size, and the reduction in &nbsp;dislocation density&nbsp;reduced scattering of electrons and increased electrical conductivity.</p>

Improved Tensile Strength and Electrical Conductivity of the Electrical Conductor Aluminum Alloy 6201

Paper Proceedings: https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/IMECE/IMECE2021/volume/85543

ASME 2021 International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition (IMECE2021)

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