Selection of copper alloys by creating of a database of properties

Abstract

The project is based on the design and selection criteria of materials to choose the best copper alloy according to its application. The assignment consists on creating a database including mechanical and electrical properties of different alloys in order to compare them through Ashby’s charts. It has been established as a requirement to work with copper alloys whose purity is 99% or over due to the fact that these materials have higher electrical conductivity than other alloys with less copper percentage. Bibliographic reports show that working with alloys of less than 10000 ppm (1%) of alloying component permits changing the mechanical properties without modifying excessively the electrical properties. The elaboration of a database is carried out through CES-Constructor program. This application enables to correlate materials with their own properties in order to work with CESSelector. This program allows the comparison between different materials depending on their properties through the Ashby’s charts. Finally, an application has been proposed in order to select the best alloy using the previous created database: Contact wires in a train catenary. This construction must have a high electrical conductivity and be able to withstand the forces it is submitted to. Therefore, it is possible to establish a relation between electrical and mechanical properties (material index) which allow selecting the material with best performance. Concluding, optimal alloys have been selected for the application above described through the representation of Ashby’s charts created from the material index found.