Grain refinement has been found to be an effective method for simultaneously enhancing strength and toughness. To avoid the sharp coarsening of grains in Cu-Ni-Sn alloys during solution treatment and thereby overcoming the tradeoff between strength and ductility, this work attempted to modify the composition and improve the thermal stability of the fine-grained structure in Cu-Ni-Sn alloys. The grain growth behavior during a solution treatment of the Cu-15Ni-8Sn alloys with/without Si and Ti additions was systematically investigated. The result reveals that compared to the grain size of 146 μm in the based alloy (without trace additions) after solution processing at 1073 K for 2 h, the fine-grained structure with a size below 20 μm is maintained owing to the benefit from Si and Ti addition. It was observed that the addition of Si and Ti offer the inhibition effect on the dissolution of the γ phase and Ni16Si7Ti6 particles after solution treatment. The grain boundary movement is severely hindered by these two aspects: the pinning effect from these particles, and the drag effect induced by additional solute atoms. Based on the analysis of grain growth kinetics, the activation energy of grain growth is increased from 156 kJ/mol to 353 kJ/mol with the addition of Si and Ti.
Keywords: Cu-15Ni-8Sn alloys; grain size; microalloying; microstructural evolution; solution treatment.