Annealing and

Age hardening

Dr. Jithin Vishnu

• Annealing is a comparable heat treatment in which the hardness of a
mechanically deformed microstructure is reduced at high temperatures.
• In order to appreciate the details of this microstructural development, we
need to explore four terms:
➢COLD WORK
➢RECOVERY
➢RECRYSTALLIZATION
➢GRAIN GROWTH
 Cold work
• Cold work - to mechanically deform a metal at relatively
low temperatures.
• Amount of cold work is defined relative to the reduction in
cross- sectional area of the alloy by processes such as
rolling or drawing.
• The percent cold work is given by 𝒑𝒆𝒓𝒄𝒆𝒏𝒕 𝒄𝒐𝒍𝒅 𝒘𝒐𝒓𝒌 =
𝑨𝒐 −𝑨𝒇
× 𝟏𝟎𝟎
𝑨𝒐

• Hardness and strength of alloys are increased with

increasing % CW, a process termed strain hardening.
• Due to the high density of dislocations produced in the
working
• Severely distorted grains are quite unstable. By taking the
microstructure to higher temperatures where sufficient
atom mobility is available, the material can be softened
and a new microstructure can emerge

Ferritic stainless steel Titanium alloy

 RECOVERY

• No gross microstructural change occurs.

• However, atomic mobility is sufficient to diminish
the concentration of point defects within grains T
and, in some cases, to allow dislocations to move
to lower- energy positions. T
• Effects of recovery A positive dislocation and
• Point defects: Density decreases- negative dislocation will
annihilates to surfaces or grain come together, annihilate
boundaries- also point defects can and form a continuous plane
annihilate by a process called dislocation
climb – decrease in vacancy T
• Dislocations of opposite sign: may come T
together and annihilate This condition leads to
• Dislocations of same sign – try to align T the formation of a low
themselves one above the other to reduce angle tilt boundary
the strain energy
RECRYSTALLIZATION

• Replacement of deformed crystals of high dislocation density by strain

free crystals of low dislocation density
• New strain free crystals grow into the material and gradually replace the
deformed crystals

• Driving force: strain energy associated with dislocations

• Process is temperature dependent
• Recrystallisation temperature : defined as the temperature at which
50% recrystallization occurs in 1 h
Effect of recrystallization on different processing variables
• Degree of prior deformation: how much is deformed before the annealing
or recrystallization process
• Higher the prior deformation – higher is the stored energy – higher driving force –
lower recrystallisation temperature + finer recrystallized grain
• Initial grain size
• Finer initial grain – more grain boundary region – higher recrystallization rate-
lower recrystallization temperature + finer recrystallized grain size
• Temperature of cold working
• Lower temperature of cold working – higher strain energy – higher driving force – lower
recrystallization temperature
• Temperature of recrystallization
• Recrystallization rate depends exponentially on temperature
• Effect of solute atoms and second phase
• Solute atoms and second phase particles hinder the motion of grain boundaries
during recrystallization
• - lower recrystallization rate – higher recrystallization temperature
 Grain growth
• Final stage in annealing
• Grain growth refers to the increase in the average grain size and
decrease in the number of grains

• Driving force - reduction in surface energy associated with grain boundary

• Recrystallized microstructure contains a large concentration of grain boundaries
• Reduction of these high- energy interfaces is a method of stabilizing a system further
• This can be accomplished by coarsening of annealed microstructures by grain growth
• Grain growth, which is not dissimilar to the coalescence of soap bubbles, is a process
similarly driven by the reduction of surface area.
Aluminum
Tungsten – severely deformed Tungsten – recrystallized Tungsten – grain growth
 AGE HARDENING
• First discovered in aluminum alloys by Alfred Wilm (1901)
• How to strengthen aluminum alloys?
• Steel is hardened by quenching
• Why not try quenching of Al alloys?
• Wilm’s laboratory developed a program for quenching Al-4 wt.%Cu alloy
Hardness did not increase One Saturday morning Wilm conducted experiments
and in some cases it He was a lover of sailing –
decreased He heated, holded and quenched – before measuring
Factors - at what hardness – he went for sailing since it was weekend
Temperature

Hold temperature is the material
hold and what rate it is
quenched and composition
Wilm varied these
parameters – none of these
worked – no increase in
Time hardness
Monday morning he came back – resume the
experiment – increase in hardness
To understand this, Wilm again conducted same test
and measure hardness, but no increase
Hence he checked the weekend effect -
 Temperature
Hold

Time
Hardness

Hpeak

Hquenched

Time
 Property is a function of microstructure
• Wilhem observed no change in microstructure with increase in
hardness!!!!!!!

To understand, we have to look at the

phase diagram
α - is the substitutional solid solution of Cu
in Al (FCC)
 - Al2Cu – intermetallic compound
(orthorhombic)
 During heat treatment, Al is heated to single phase region
α , above solvus and below solidus – region where a single
phase solid solution is formed
L If this phase is cooled – below the solves-  will start
forming within α (a solid ccp phase) – a new precipitate
phase is forming
Tsolidus
α+L If cooled below solvus –
α 𝛼𝑠𝑢𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑎𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑑 → 𝛼𝑠𝑎𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑑 + 𝜃
If the alloy is suddenly cooled to alpha phase to this
temperature – initially concentration will be 4 wt.% Cu, but
Tsolvus equilibrium concentration is much less than that – so the
extra copper in alpha phase will start coming out and that
extra Cu will concentrate in regions which will form theta
α + This is called precipitation reaction or precipitation
transformation
These precipitates creates an obstacle to dislocation
motion and leads to hardening
 Why quenching? TTT diagram for 𝛼 → 𝛼 + 𝜃

Above solvus, alpha phase is stable

Even if we slow cool, we will get α+
Temperature

Precipitates are obstacles to dislocation motion

and there will be hardening
However what Wilm was doing was quenching –
and then allow transformation to happen
Why quenching and ageing instead of gradually
Stable alpha
Tsolvus cooling?
Unstable alpha This is because during slow cooling temperature
of transformation is much much higher, whereas
during quenching and ageing temperature of
transformation is lower
Coarse At lower temperature there is faster nucleation
Quench precipitates and slower growth – resulting in a finer
precipitation of precipitates
At higher temperature there is slower nucleation
and faster growth – resulting in a coarser
Faster nucleation precipitates
Fine
Ageing and slower Finer precipitates – more obstacle to dislocation
precipitates
growth motion – higher hardness
Time
 Microstructural evolution

Peak – aged
Increased density of
precipitates
More hindrance for
dislocation to move
Aged
Precipitate will Over – aged (also called Ostwald ripening)
start forming Fine precipitate distribution starts transforming
into coarser precipitate
Reason : for coarse distribution – smaller
surface area and smaller interfacial energy –
As-quenched for fine particles- higher interfacial energy –
Single phase  driving force – reduction in precipitate/matrix
No precipitate interfacial energy
 Effect of ageing temperature

Hpeak1 > Hpeak2 tp2 < tp1

Hardness

Hpeak1

Hpeak2
T2 > T1
T1 T2

T1

tp2 tp1
Time
Peak hardness is reached in a shorter time
At the same time value of peak hardness is reduced
 Temperature

Quench
Tsolvus

Time for completion is more at lower

temperature than at higher temperature
Hence lower hardness in a shorter time at
higher aging temperature
Coarse precipitates Hence by optimizing these two parameters w
Fine precipitates can achieve reasonable hardness in a
Ageing reasonable time

Time