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Aluminum Alloys
LANDER, BJRN HOLMEDAL,
YVIND RYEN, OSCAR NIJS, EMMA SJO
M, and ERIK NES
HANS-ERIK EKSTRO
A number of commercial and high-purity nonheat-treatable aluminum alloys are investigated in this
work. It is found that both magnesium and manganese in solid solution give a nearly linear concentration dependence of the strength at a given strain for commercial alloys. This deviates from highpurity AlMg binary alloys, where a parabolic concentration dependence is found. Mn in solid solution
is found to give a considerably higher strengthening effect per atom than Mg, both in terms of yield
stress and initial work hardening rate. This strengthening effect is stronger comparing commercial
grades to high-purity alloys. This enhanced strengthening is believed to be a synergy or clustering
effect caused by interaction between Mn atoms and trace elements, probably silicon, in solid solution.
I. INTRODUCTION
mist, where the size of the solute atom differs from the
size of the matrix atoms and creates a strain eld around the
atom, and (2) the modulus mist, where the difference in
binding force between the solute atoms and the matrix
atoms results in a hard or soft spot in the matrix. However the interaction works, the presence of solute atoms
increases the initial yield stress and reduces the dynamic
recovery rate of dislocations. This results in a higher dislocation density and a higher work hardening rate but also
a different dislocation structure, which is dealt with in
another paper.[6]
Several authors have reported correlations between the
ow stress and the alloy concentration of the type:
s 5 spure 1 Hcn
[1]
EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURE
Table I. Nominal Composition (in wt pct) and Grain Size of the Materials Investigated
Alloy
Mg
Mn
Si
Fe
AA1050
AA1200
Al-Mg0.5
Al-Mg1
Al-Mg3
AA5182*
AA3103
Al-Mn0.45-HP
Al-Mn1-HP
Al-Mn0.15Fe-HP
Al-Mn0.28Fe-HP
Al-Mn0.42Fe-HP
0.48
1.01
2.93
4.55
0.27
1.0
0.45
1.0
0.15
0.28
0.42
0.09
0.13
0.04
0.06
0.06
0.11
0.12
0.27
0.52
0.18
0.19
0.20
0.21
0.57
0.02
0.02
0.02
117
500
500
500
500
500
86
79
68
50
65
to 1000
to 1000
to 1000
to 1000
to 1000
*Supplied by Pechiney, now Alcan-Voreppe, France. Other commercial alloys supplied by Hydro Aluminium, Sunndal, Norway.
The contents of the various trace elements (including Cu) in the commercial alloys were typically on the level 0.005 to 0.01 wt pct or less. The high-purity
alloys were prepared by Sapa, Finspong, Sweden.
Table II.
Homogenization Treatment and Solute Levels, Mn(ss), in the AA3103 Alloy Variants
Homogenization Before Quenching
0.40
0.28
0.24
0.22
0.17
Alloy/Condition
3103
3103
3103
3101
3103
AC
A
B
C
D
Mg
High-Purity Mn
Strain
s99.999
(exp) MPa
s1200
(exp) MPa
s1050
(exp) MPa
spure
MPa
H MPa
(At. Pct)$n
spure
MPa
H MPa
(At. Pct)$1
spure
MPa
H MPa
(At. Pct)n
0.002
0.025
0.05
0.10
0.20
4.2
15.5
21.9
29.2
38.8
19.3
47.7
60
76.6
95.4
19.3
47.1
60.3
74.8
91.6
19.5
46.5
59.6
74.0
91.5
1.14
0.90
0.87
0.88
0.94
12.1
23.4
31.8
42.0
47.7
19.4
47.8
60.1
77.1
94.9
54.8
89.2
112.1
113.5
120.2
4.03
15.3
0.90
0.80
34.8
40.2
The experimental ow stresses of 99.999 aluminium, AA1200, and AA1050 are shown for comparison.
Fig. 3(a) True stress-strain curves from tensile testing of the AA3103alloys variants and the AA1200 alloy. (b) Stress-strain curves for the high
purity AlMn alloys.
and for the two lowest strain levels for the high-purity
grades. For the latter alloys it was not meaningful to t
the result to Eq. [1] for the higher strain levels because of
extensive dynamic recovery in the purity aluminium. It
follows from the results in Figure 4 and Table III that the
solute strengthening rate is about 50 to 60 pct stronger in
the commercial alloy variants compared to the high-purity
grades. The ow stress levels, however, for the two variants
in Figure 4 are widely different. It was somewhat unexpected that the strengthening due to an increasing amount
of Mn is nearly linear (n 5 0.9) in the high-purity alloys,
since a parabolic effect with n 5 0.75 was found for the
high-purity Al-Mg grades studied by Sherby et al.[2] However, better statistics in terms of more data points for the
Al-Mn case would be required to make conclusions as to
the precise value of this n exponent as illustrated by the
broken line in Figure 4(b), tted using n 5 0.75.
CONCLUSIONS