Strain Hardening Characteristics of 99.9% Pure Silver at Large Strains

Silver has wide-ranging applications, such as industrial equipment, semiconductors, musical instruments, and silverware. Despite its diversified applications, publications on its strain-hardening characteristics are rare. In this work, tensile and hardness tests were performed for cold-rolled specimens at different levels of thickness reduction after full annealing. Up to the true strain of 1.7, strain-hardening characteristics and variations in Rockwell hardness were obtained for 99.9% pure silver. The consistency between the true stress–strain curve and the hardness data was confirmed through finite-element modeling and analysis of the hardness test procedure. Strain-hardened pure silver was verified to have yield strength comparable to sterling silver. For applications where both of purity and deformation resistance are important, strain hardened pure silver could be a practical candidate.