Hello,
The standard procedure for precipitation heat treatment of an 6061 Al alloy to a T6 state is 350F for 8 hours. I am wondering if it is possible to achieve the same or close to the same tensile strength and % elongation properties as T6 with a shorter heat treatment time. Any information would be much appreciated.
Thank you.
Peter
You might attempt to apply the approximation that every 10 degrees C increase in temperature doubles the reaction rate..... and thus attempt to believe that a little hotter and a little shorter time will be "equivalent".
I believe that there is some discussion of such variations in the ASM Handbook Of Metals, Aluminum Volume. Head for a library that has a collection, or a collection of different editions.
There have been always pressures for people to "gain a financial edge" by reducing the cost and time of heat treatments, so there should be some information out there for you.
Jim
Should be worth a try. But the maxium strength will tend to decrease with higher annealing temperatures, since particel coarsening will take place before all precipitates are formed.
Michael Dahms
Good point.
This is an example of the OTHER metallurgical reactions, maybe not useful to you, are also accelerated by the attempt to fiddle with the kinetics of a process.
Maybe there were a lot of good reasons for the T-6 process to be exactly as it is.
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