Beryllium copper is usually divided into: copper, brass, bronze; the heat treatment of beryllium copper alloy is the key to its versatility. Different from other copper alloys that can only be strengthened by cold working, the extremely high strength, conductivity and hardness of special-shaped beryllium copper are achieved by two processes of cold working and heat treatment. These beryllium copper alloys can be made by heat treatment. Forming and improving its mechanical properties, other copper alloys do not have this advantage.
Types of beryllium copper:

There are many kinds of beryllium copper alloys on the market recently, the common ones are red copper (pure copper): oxygen-free copper, phosphorus-added deoxidized copper; brass (copper-based alloy): tin brass, manganese brass, iron brass; bronze Class: tin bronze, silicon bronze, manganese bronze, zirconium bronze, chrome bronze, chrome zirconium copper, cadmium bronze, beryllium bronze, etc. The heat treatment of beryllium copper alloy is composed of solution treatment and age hardening.
1. Solution annealing treatment method

Generally, the heating temperature of solution treatment is between 781-821°C. For materials used as elastic components, 761-780°C is used, mainly to prevent the coarse grains from affecting the strength. The solution annealing heat treatment method should make the furnace temperature uniformity strictly controlled within ±5℃. The holding time can generally be calculated as 1 hour/25mm. When beryllium copper is subjected to solution heating treatment in air or an oxidizing atmosphere, an oxide film will be formed on the surface. Although it has little effect on the mechanical properties after aging strengthening, it will affect the service life of the tool during cold working.
2. Age hardening heat treatment

The aging temperature of beryllium copper is related to the content of Be, and all alloys containing less than 2.2% of Be should be subjected to aging treatment. For alloys with Be greater than 1.7%, the optimal aging temperature is 301-331 °C, and the holding time is 1-3 hours (depending on the shape and thickness of the part). High conductivity electrode alloys with Be less than 0.5%, due to the increase of melting point, the optimal aging temperature is 450-481 ℃, and the holding time is 1-3 hours.

In recent years, double-stage and multi-stage aging have also been developed, that is, short-term aging at high temperature first, and then long-term thermal aging at low temperature. The advantages of this are that the performance is improved and the amount of deformation is reduced. In order to improve the dimensional accuracy of beryllium copper after aging, clamp clamping can be used for aging, and sometimes two separate aging treatments can be used.

Such a treatment method is beneficial to the improvement of the electrical conductivity and hardness of the beryllium copper alloy, thereby facilitating the finalization of the basic properties of the beryllium copper alloy during the processing.