The influence of quenching media and aging time on microstructure and mechanical behavior of 6061 aluminum alloy

Abstract EN

Aluminum-magnesium-silicon (Al-Mg-Si) alloys are medium strength, excellent formability, good corrosion resistance and widely used in extruded products and automotive body materials.

The influence of quenching media with different aging time on microstructure and mechanical properties of 6061 aluminum alloy was investigated.

The results show formation of (Mg2Si) and (CuAl2) phases when solution treatment was applied (at 520°C for 2h, followed by quenching in water and oil at room temperature then aging (at 175°C for 2, 4 and 6h)) which result improving of both the strength, hardness and decreases elongation.

It can be noted that, the grains of samples which are quenching in water is finer than the structure of samples which are quenching in oil.

The values of yield stress and ultimate tensile strength decrease respectively with increasing aging time to 6h as (258MPa) and (264MPa) for water quenching and (199MPa) and (235MPa) for oil quenching.

In this piper were measured and discussed the variation of the yield stress, ultimate tensile strength and elongation with different solution quenching and aging time.