Cu-2.5Al-2.5Zn, Cu-4.5Al-22.8Zn and Cu-12.1Al-4.1at%Zn alloys, with stacking-fault energies of 40, 10 and 7mJ/m2, respectively, were processed by a combination of room-temperature rolling and liquid nitrogen temperature rolling. Microstructural observations indicated that a decrease in stacking-fault energy led to a decrease in crystallite size and to an increase in microstrain, dislocation and twin densities. Under the same deformation conditions, a lower stacking-fault energy promoted the formation of nanostructures and deformation twins.

The Effect of Stacking Fault Energy on Equilibrium Grain Size and Tensile Properties of Ultrafine-Grained Cu-Al-Zn Alloys Processed by Rolling. B.Cai, J.Tao, W.Wang, X.Yang, Y.Gong, L.Cheng, X.Zhu: Journal of Alloys and Compounds, 2014, 610, 224-30