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Aging of a Precipitation Hardening Alloy

Technical Report · March 2011

DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.1.2444.4649

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 Aging of a Precipitation
Hardening Alloy
Akash Trivedi
CID: 00637814
Personal Tutor: Dr. P. Robinson
Submission Date: 06/03/2011

In this experiment, the effect of aging temperature on the hardness of a precipitation

hardening aluminium alloy was determined. Several samples aged isochronally at different
temperatures were tested, and an optimum hardness of nearly 100Hv2 at a temperature of 230
C was deduced. Causes for the peak and overaging were also discussed.
Contents
1. Introduction Page 2

2. Objectives Page 2

3. Theory Page 2

4. Experimental Procedure Page 2

5. Results Page 3

6. Discussion ______ Page 3

7. Conclusion Page 5

8. References Page 5

1|Page
 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]

The overall objectives of this experiment are:

 To determine the effect of aging temperature on the hardness of a precipitation
hardening aluminium alloy.

3. Theory

As the phase diagram of an aluminum

copper alloy has a form of that in Figure
1, it has the potential for age hardening.
This is as the solid solubility decreases
with temperature.

Between 500oC and 600oC, the alloy is

in a single field solid solution, but as the
temperature falls, the amount of CuAl2
increases and the alloy is in two phase
fields.

If cooled slowly, nucleation rate of

CuAl2 is low and they are large and
spread out. This doesn’t hinder
dislocation motion much and the alloy is
soft. However, if the alloy is quenched,
the nucleation rate is higher and a lot of
closely spaced precipitates form. These Figure 1: Al-Cu phase diagram [2]
fine particles act as barriers to
dislocation motion thus hardening the alloy.

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

Table 1: Table of results

120

100
Hardness/Hv2

80

60

40

20

0
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400
Aging Temperature/oC

Figure 2: Hardness against aging temperature for isochronal aging.

6. Discussion

From Figure 2, it is evident that the form of the

hardness temperature curve has a peak. This peak
corresponds to the optimum aging temperature
such that hardness is maximised. The increasing
hardness in the first half of the curve is due to
separate hardening mechanisms taking place in the
age hardening process.

Initially, there is a small amount of hardening due

to the substitutional copper atoms in the
supersaturated α solid solution. However, this type
of hardening is almost eradicated when the GP
zones start to form from the copper atoms.

The GP zones are regions of solute concentration

in the form of discs (θ’’) that are perfectly
coherent with the matrix. However, they have a
Figure 3: Cutting and bowing [4]
large coherency strain due to the mismatch of
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lattice parameters [3] that helps to prevent dislocation motion, providing great hardening.

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.

The peak in the aging curve of

Figure 2 is due to the intersection
of the two major hardening
mechanisms; cutting and bowing.
If the transformation of CuAl2
precipitates is stopped at the θ’’
stage, the peak hardness is
obtained. This can be seen in the
analogous case of yield strength
against aging time in Figure 4. Figure 4: Graph illustrating optimum strength [3]

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.

As the TTT diagram in Figure

4 details, as temperature is
increased, the aging time
decreases. Alternatively, for
isochronal aging, as aging time
is changed, a specific aging
temperature is required to
obtain the peak value for
hardness.

For a given time span, aging

above this temperature would
result in a sub-optimum
hardness. This would then be
an overaged alloy. Figure 5: TTT diagram for Al-4 wt% Cu [3]

4|Page
 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

[1] Lab handout. Ageing of a Precipitation Hardening Alloy

[2] Wikipedia (n.d.) [Online: Image] Available from:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f7/Al-Cu-phase-diagram-partial-
greek.svg/325px-Al-Cu-phase-diagram-partial-greek.svg.png [Accessed: 26/02/2012]

[3] Ashby, M. F. & Jones, D. R. H. (2005) Engineering Materials 2. Third Edition. Oxford,
GB, Butterworth-Heinemann.

[4] Wikipedia (n.d.) [Online: Image] Available from:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b9/Strengthening_new.svg/281px-
Strengthening_new.svg.png

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