B. Li, T. Steigauf, P. Mcintyre, Medtronic, minneapolis, MN
Fort Wayne Metals (FWM) is a major provider of MP35N and Ag-cored MP35N conductor wires for leads in medical device application. Recently, FWM produced MP35N and Ag-cored MP35N wires using a special, proprietary process. Wire produced with this special process has unique mechanical properties: lower ultimate tensile strength compare to conventional wire, higher tensile yield strength, extremely high elongation, and a lower Young's modulus. Because of its unique mechanical properties, the wire becomes an interesting material for microstructure investigation. An EBSD analysis was conducted on a Ag-core MP35N wire with the NDR process. The analysis was performed to determine crystallography texture, grain size and grain boundary characterization. In this study, the modulus of MP35N wire along <111> and <001> direction were estimated from its strong textured wire property.
Summary: Summary
The MP35N in Ag core MP35N wire with NDR process has <100> prefered orientation as the major texture component.
Because the wires are highly textured, the anisotropy dependent properties such as modulus will be different in <111> wire and <100> wire.
The standard process wire has a higher percentage of small angle grain boundaries than new process wire.
The NDR wire grain size was smaller and narrower distribution than standard process.
