Beryllium copper is a widely used copper alloy

Good comprehensive performance: excellent mechanical properties, strength, hardness, wear resistance, and fatigue resistance are the best among copper alloys. It also has high electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, non-magnetic, spark resistance, and other properties, easy to cast and press forming.

Cold working and hot working performance: excellent cold working performance and good hot working performance. For example, C17200 Beryllium Copper Stamping has excellent cold-working performance and good hot-working performance and is mainly used in diaphragms, diaphragm boxes, bellows, springs, etc.

1. Cutting processing:

- Cutting fluid selection: The use of cutting fluid during cutting can play a role in heat dissipation and lubrication, extend tool life, and improve processing efficiency and product quality. Since beryllium bronze generates a lot of cutting heat during the cutting process, cutting fluid is mainly used to accelerate the diffusion of cutting heat and reduce cutting temperature. For example, the cutting fluid of mineral oil plus 3% to 7% lard is used for cutting C17200 Beryllium Copper Stamping material. Although the emulsion made of soluble oil has an obvious heat dissipation effect, the sulfur element in the composition will cause a few spots on the surface of the beryllium bronze material, leaving the hidden danger of scrapping the workpiece. The heat dissipation effect of mineral oil plus lard is relatively poor compared with the emulsion, but the lubrication effect is relatively obvious, which can reduce the friction between the tool and the workpiece and reduce the cutting heat.

- Drilling: When drilling BeCu Electrical Contact Spring material, you can choose a high-speed steel twist drill for drilling holes. The drill helix angle is 29°, the top angle is 118°, and the drill edge angle is 12°. If necessary, a special ground tooltip can be used. Due to the high strength and hardness of beryllium copper material, a lower cutting speed is required, and the cutting fluid is poured for cooling and lubrication, which helps the chips to be discharged smoothly, prevents the chips from scratching the processed surface, reduces the wear of the drill bit, and extends the service life of the drill bit. At the same time, it is necessary to ensure that the cutting speed and feed rate are constant to prevent the hardening of the bottom of the hole and increase the difficulty of processing.

- Milling: Beryllium Copper Spring Contact has high strength and hardness. When milling, the cutting edge must be sharp and have strong impact resistance. Although both high-speed steel milling cutters and carbide milling cutters can be used for milling beryllium copper materials, carbide milling cutters have higher processing accuracy, so carbide milling cutters are generally used for milling. When turning beryllium bronze materials, it is advisable to use the asymmetric down-milling method, which can effectively reduce the friction between the milling cutter and the workpiece, stabilize the workpiece, and reduce tool vibration. During the milling process, some cutting fluids can also be used to extend the service life of the milling cutter and reduce the surface roughness value of the workpiece.

2. Heat treatment:

- Solution treatment: Generally, the heating temperature of solution treatment is between 780-820℃. For Beryllium Copper Alloy materials used as elastic elements, 760-780℃ is used, mainly to prevent coarse grains from affecting strength. The uniformity of the solution treatment furnace temperature should be strictly controlled at ±5℃. The holding time can generally be calculated as 1 hour/25mm. When beryllium bronze is subjected to solution heating treatment in air or an oxidizing atmosphere, an oxide film will form on the surface. Although it has little effect on the mechanical properties after aging strengthening, it will affect the service life of the tooling during cold processing. To avoid oxidation, it should be heated in a vacuum furnace or ammonia decomposition, inert gas, and reducing atmosphere (such as hydrogen, carbon monoxide, etc.) to obtain a bright heat treatment effect. 

- Aging treatment: The aging temperature of Beryllium Copper Flat Spring is related to the Be content. All alloys containing less than 2.1% Be are suitable for aging treatment. For alloys with more than 1.7% Be, the optimal aging temperature is 300-330℃, and the holding time is 1-3 hours (depending on the shape and thickness of the part). For highly conductive electrode alloys with less than 0.5% Be, the best aging temperature is 450-480℃ and the holding time is 1-3 hours due to the increased melting point. In recent years, double-stage and multi-stage aging have also been developed, that is, short-term aging at high temperatures and long-term holding at low temperatures. The advantage of this is that the performance is improved but the deformation is reduced. To improve the dimensional accuracy of beryllium bronze after aging, it can be clamped for aging, and sometimes two-stage separate aging treatment can be used.

- Stress relief treatment: The stress relief annealing temperature of Beryllium Spring for Relay is 150-200℃ and the holding time is 1-1.5 hours. It can be used to eliminate residual stress caused by metal cutting, straightening, cold forming, etc., and stabilize the shape and dimensional accuracy of parts during long-term use.