A Cu-10Fe alloy with magnetron sputtered Al films was irradiated by high current pulsed electron beam (HCPEB) with various pulse numbers, next changes of its microstructure and corrosion property were investigated. Compared with the initial sample, microhardness and corrosion resistance of the aluminized Cu-10Fe alloys after the HCPEB treatment are remarkably improved with increasing pulse numbers. This improvement could be attributed to formation of Al2Cu intermetallic compounds, occurrence of liquid phase separation and grain refinement in the surface layer of the Cu-10Fe alloy during the process of rapid remelting and solidification induced by the HCPEB treatment.

Microstructures of CuCr25 and CuCr50 alloys treated by high current pulsed electron beam (HCPEB) were investigated in this work. The microstructure and solidification behavior of the Cr-rich phases were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Results show that a remelting layer of 3~5 μm is formed on the surface of Cu-Cr alloys. The microstructure of the remelting layer reveals that both the fine dispersion of Cr-rich spheroids and the craters appear after HCPEB treatment. This means that metastable liquid phase separation occurs during rapid solidification under HCPEB treatment. In addition, the appearance of relatively large craters in the subsurface of Cr-rich particles with the distance about 5-10 μm provides direct evidences supporting results reported by other researchers in terms of numerical simulation temperature field of HCPEB treatments.