Abstract

Heavily cold drawn in situ Cu–Nb composites have been investigated by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and X-ray analysis. Dislocation density in the copper matrix has been shown to change only slightly in the investigated drawing ratio range because of the development of stage IV of deformation. In Nb filaments dislocation density in the investigated range at first increases with deformation and then drops at the highest drawing ratio. At intermediate deformation niobium grains consist of fine blocks separated by low-angle dislocation boundaries. At drawing, fibre texture develops in both phases, with 〈111〉 and 〈100〉 axis for the copper matrix and 〈110〉 axis for niobium filaments. Besides, niobium filaments acquire ribbon-like form, and their grains possess certain orientation, namely, in interlacing grains crystallographic {311}, {100} and {111} planes are parallel to each other and to the filament plane, i.e., the rolling texture with {311}〈110〉, {100}〈110〉 and {111}(110) components is forming within every filament.