Precipitation Heat Treatment of 6061 Al

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

Peter wrote:
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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

jbuch wrote:
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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

Michael Dahms wrote:
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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.