A Fast Method for Predicting the Mechanical Properties of Precipitation-Hardenable Aluminum Alloys

Most heat treatment simulations of precipitation-hardenable aluminum alloys are incomplete or restricted to sub-steps of the process chain. In general, the studies addressing the heat treatment of aluminum components have only provided a qualitative guidance of heat treatment, which does not match the heat treatment that is necessary for specific parts with specific requirements. Thus, a quick and accurate simulation of the whole heat treatment process would hold great economic benefit for industrial applications in predicting suitable heat treatment processes that are able to meet the required mechanical properties of proposed novel aluminum components. In this paper, the development of a time and cost efficient method for generating such prediction models is presented by means of an example aluminum alloy EN AW-6082. During the process sub-steps of solution annealing, quenching and aging, the time-temperature correlations connected to the precipitation-hardening conditions were analyzed. The precision of the prediction model depends on the size of the material database, which should be able to be adjusted to the individual requirements of the simulation user. In order to obtain the greatest time and cost efficiency in generating such a model, a specific experimental design was developed. The results of the method development are presented and discussed