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Aging of A Precipitation Hardening Alloy: March 2011
Aging of A Precipitation Hardening Alloy: March 2011
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Akash Trivedi
University of Oxford
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2. Objectives Page 2
3. Theory Page 2
5. Results Page 3
7. Conclusion Page 5
8. References Page 5
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1. Introduction
Age hardening or precipitation hardening is a technique used to strengthen alloys for various
applications. This is useful in the field of aeronautical engineering where aluminium alloys
still form a significant proportion of the aircraft.
One such alloy was used on the Concorde. A supersonic aircraft like this is subjected to harsh
thermal conditions. This is why over aging must be studied.
2. Objectives [1]
3. Theory
4. Experimental Procedure
Five specimens of the Al-Cu (Concorde AA2618) alloy aged isochronally at different
temperatures were tested. For mechanical testing, a Vickers hardness test machine was
utilised.
[1]
More details of the experimental procedure can be found in the lab handout.
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5. Results
Sample O A B C D
Temp/ oC 20 100 200 300 350
60.7 70.3 89.0 83.1 40.1
Hardness/Hv2 56.3 77.0 96.9 91.8 27.7
64.6 76.4 89.4 86.3 39.5
Average 60.5 74. 6 91.8 87.1 35.8
St. Dev. 4.15 3.71 4.45 4.40 6.99
120
100
Hardness/Hv2
80
60
40
20
0
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400
Aging Temperature/oC
6. Discussion
Further hardening is due to precipitation hardening in which the dislocations can either cut
through precipitates or bow around them. The mechanism preferred depends on factors such
as precipitate size and spacing
between adjacent precipitates.
Cutting is the preferred method
when sizes are small and closely
spaced. However, as the θ’’
precipitate size increases due to
aging, spacing between them
increases too, leading eventually
to bowing.
In this particular experiment, the optimum aging temperature (given isochronal aging) was
approximately 230oC. At this temperature, the hardness was maximised at nearly 100 Hv2.
However, this is not always the
case as the optimum
temperature varies with time of
aging.
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An overaged alloy is when the ideal θ’’ start to dissolve and transfer copper into the growing
θ’ precipitates which start to nucleate at the dislocations. This is when disk faces are still
coherent with the matrix but the edges are now incoherent.
Further aging leads to the growth of the equilibrium CuAl2, θ precipitate which is completely
incoherent with the matrix, nucleating at grain boundaries, and drastically reduces hardness.
This incoherency causes the θ precipitate to form rounded rather than disk shaped. This leads
to a larger precipitate, which is more spaced apart and thus reduces bowing stress.
7. Conclusion
This experiment allowed the determination of the hardness of several precipitation hardening
aluminium alloys that were aged isochronally at different temperatures. It was found that
there was an optimum aging temperature of 230oC such that hardness was maximized. This
was where the cutting and bowing mechanisms intersected and the precipitates were in the θ’’
form.
When below this temperature, the alloy was underaged leading to precipitate cutting by
dislocations with a reduced stress. Increased temperature lead to overaging which was
deduced to be even worse a phenomenon due to the drastic reduction in hardness as the θ’’
dissolved to equilibrium θ.
This means that there would be situations in which the structural material would have to
operate properly in high temperature conditions where this type of strengthening would not
be appropriate. Hence, the engineer in charge of material selection should place great
importance on selecting the appropriate material given the temperature requirements. He
must also be confident that overaging will not be a problem in the field of operation.
8. References
[3] Ashby, M. F. & Jones, D. R. H. (2005) Engineering Materials 2. Third Edition. Oxford,
GB, Butterworth-Heinemann.
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