Description
Abstract: Recently, weight reduction has been a critical issue in the automobile industry, and the feasibility of changing the material of the wire harnesses of cars from copper to aluminum is essential. Conventionally drawn wires have high strength owing to work hardening, but low ductility, but for the manufacturing of wire harnesses high strength and high ductility is a requirement. Therefore, in this paper, we propose an “alternate wire drawing process” which can impart high strength and ductility to the drawn wires. Compared with a conventionally drawn wire, an alternately drawn wire was confirmed to have 15% higher ductility during tensile testing and increased 20% higher durability in a reverse bending test. By examining the crystal texture by XRD and EBSD, a difference in the crystal structure in the additional shear strain area near the wire surface, which affects the ductility of the drawn wire, was revealed. According to our results, alternately drawn aluminum wires were confirmed to be effective substituted for copper wires in a wire harness.
Authors: Chihiro Takuma and Kazunari Yoshida
Keywords: Alternate wire drawing, Aluminum alloy wire, Automotive wiring harness