Copper-niobium alloy CONFORM die failure

"I tried to do it for a mixture of copper and niobium alloys, and I just broke the dies." Brief mention as a counter-example — Conform doesn't work when the second phase is too hard. Same teaching unit as the trolley wire case but a distinct cluster in the canon.

When I looked up Conform recently — I actually tried to do Conform to make some superconductors 30 years ago and it didn't work very well — if you look at Conform now on the web, it's used for the production of copper flat strip, copper bus bar, commutator connectors for motors, trolley contact wire, and other copper conductors. You can do it with aluminum, but it's easier to extrude aluminum the old-fashioned way; aluminum is at a low enough temperature. Obviously this is good for copper alloys. I tried to do it for a mixture of copper and niobium alloys, and I just broke the dies. The niobium strengthened things too much; I couldn't come up with a steel die that wouldn't break. When you've got something relatively soft that undergoes dynamic recrystallization, you end up with very good electrical conductors.