Describe a heat treatment process to achieve maximum strength by precipitation hardening?
You would like to precipitation harden a aluminum-copper alloy (4% copper). Above 500 C, this material is in a single phase. Describe a heat treatment process to achieve maximum strength by precipitation hardening. Comment on the following (i) the heat treatment procedure to achieve maximum strength and prevent overaging.
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One Response to “Describe a heat treatment process to achieve maximum strength by precipitation hardening?”
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Once the material is at 500 C, then it should be rapidly quenched to form a single phase solid solution.
I dont know the specific time or temperature, but it would then have to be aged to bring out CuAl2 particles. The higher the temperature, the faster this would occur but it could also make the particles too big. the trick is to find the right time and temperature combo so that you have the smallest and the most precipitates as possible. If you were to plot a graph of hardness vs time for a specific temperature, the hardness will go up, reach a maximum and then go down. As it goes up, you have more and more precipitates forming and as it starts to go down you have those precipitates coarsen and become larger but less of them.