NED University of Engineering And Technology

Aging or Precipitation Hardening

By
Uzair Bin Asim
 Age hardening
Precipitation hardening, also called Age hardening, is a
heat treatment technique used to increase the yield
strength of malleable materials, including most structural
alloys of aluminium, magnesium, nickel, titanium, and
some stainless steels. In superalloys, it is known for
providing excellent high temperature strength.

•A process in which small particles of a new phase

precipitate in matrix which harden material.

• Also known as “Age Hardening” because hardness often

increases with time (even at room temperature!)
 The Method
• The precipitation hardening heat treatment
involves the following stages:
1.Solution treatment
2.Quenching
3.Aging
 Solution treatment
• During solution treatment a part is heated to a
temperature above the solvus temperature in
order to dissolve the second phase in the
solid solution.
• All the solute atoms dissolves to form a single
phase solid solution.
• The part is held at this temperature for a time
varying from 1hour to 20 hrs. until the dissolving
has been accomplished.
• The temperature and the soaking time of solution
treatment should not be too high to prevent
excessive growth of the grains.
QUENCHING
 Quenching
• Quenching is carried out in water, water-air
mixture or sometimes in air.
• Object of the quenching operation is obtaining
super saturation solid solution at room
temperature.
• Since the second phase retains dissolved at this
stage, hardness of the quenched alloy is lower
than after age precipitation, however higher than
hardness of the alloy in annealed state.
 Precipitation Heat Treatment (Aging)

• Depending on the temperature at which this operation is carried out aging

may be artificial or natural.
• Artificial aging.
• At this stage the part is heated up to a temperature below the solvus
temperature, followed by soaking for a time varying between 2 to 20
hours.
• The soaking time depends on the aging temperature (the higher the
temperature, the lower the soaking time).
• The aging temperature and the soaking time are also determined by the
desired resulted combination of the strength and ductility of the alloy.
• Too high aging temperature and time result in overaging – decrease of
the strength and increase of ductility.
• Natural aging.
• Natural aging is conducted at room temperature and it takes a relatively
long period of time (from several days to several weeks).
Let’s age it !!!!
 overaging
• The precipitates, however, continue to grow.
The fine precipitates disappear. They have
grown larger, and as a result the tensile
strength of the material decreases. This is
called overaging.
The conditions for an alloy to be age
hardened
Effect of age hardening on physical
properties
 Hardness vs. Time
The hardness and tensile strength vary during
aging and overaging.
Effects of Temperature

 Characteristics of a 2014 aluminum

alloy (0.9 wt% Si, 4.4 wt% Cu, 0.8 wt
% Mn, 0.5 wt% Mg) at 4 different
aging temperatures.
 Alloys
• Precipitation hardening heat treatment is commonly used
for the following alloys:
• Aluminum alloys: Al-Cu, Al-Mg-Si, Al-Cu-Mg, Al-Zn.
• Copper alloys: beryllium bronze,aluminum bronze,
aluminum-nickel bronze, chromium copper.
• Stainless steels: iron-chromium-nickel alloys with additions
of copper, aluminum, titanium and niobium. The
precipitation hardening stainless steels are either
austenitic or martensitic.
• Nickel alloys: nickel-copper alloys with additions of
titanium, aluminum and iron.
• Titanium alloys: titanium-aluminum alloys, titanium-
vanadium alloys.
Applications
Aluminum-2014
Aluminum-2024
Aluminum-7075
Copper
Nickel
Steel
 Aluminum rivets
 Alloys that experience significant
precipitation hardening at room temp, after
short periods must be quenched to and
stored under refrigerated conditions.
 Several aluminum alloys that are used for
rivets exhibit this behavior. They are driven
while still soft, then allowed to age harden at
the normal room temperature.
•
 Reference
• Heat Treatment Technologies by Dr. Dmitri Kopeliovich

• Phase transformations in metals and alloys, D.A.Porter, & K.E.

Easterling, Chapman & Hall.

• Materials Principles & Practice, Butterworth Heinemann, Edited by C.

Newey & G. Weaver.

• Mechanical Metallurgy, McGrawHill, G.E. Dieter,3rd Ed.

• Hull, D. and D. J. Bacon (1984). Introduction to Dislocations. Oxford,

UK, Pergamon.

• Courtney, T. H. (2000). Mechanical Behavior of Materials. Boston,

McGraw-Hill.
• http://www.virginia.edu/bohr/mse209/class.htm
http://fog.ccsf.cc.ca.us/~wkaufmyn/ENGN45/ Course
%20Handouts/Chap10_Kinetics-HeatTreatment.doc
http://neon.mems.cmu.edu/rollett/
27302/302.L8.age.harden.18Nov02.ppt
http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/selvaduray/page/phase/
binary_p_d.pdf
http://www.ccm.udel.edu/Personnel/homepage/
class_web2006/lecture_notes/Chapter%2012.pdf
https://www.tntech.edu/me/courses/Zhang/
ME30103110/Chap11pt2.ppt
http://users.encs.concordia.ca/~mmedraj/mech321/
lecture%206%20strengthening%20mechanisms%202.pdf