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1201: Introduction to Aluminium As an Engineering Material

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1201: Introduction to Aluminium As an Engineering Material TALAT Lecture 1201 Introduction to Aluminium as an Engineering Material 23 pages, 26 figures (also available as overheads) Basic Level prepared by M H Jacobs * Interdisciplinary Research Centre in Materials The University of Birmingham, UK Objectives To provide an introduction to metallurgical concepts necessary to understand how structural features of aluminium alloys are influenced by alloy composition, processing and heat treatment, and the basic affects of these parameters on the mechanical properties, and hence engineering applications, of the alloys. It is assumed that the reader has some elementary knowledge of physics, chemistry and mathematics. Date of Issue: 1999 EAA - European Aluminium Association 1201 Introduction to Aluminium as an Engineering Material Contents (26 figures) 1201 Introduction to Aluminium as an Engineering Material _____________________ 2 1201.01. Basic mechanical and physical properties__________________________________ 3 1201.01.01 Background _______________________________________________________________ 3 1201.01.02 Commercially pure aluminium ______________________________________________ 4 1201.02 Crystal structure and defects _____________________________________________ 6 1201.02.01 Crystals and atomic bonding __________________________________________________ 6 1201.02.02 Atomic structure of aluminium ______________________________________________ 8 1201.02.03 Crystal structures _________________________________________________________ 8 1201.02.04 Some comments on crystal structures of materials _______________________________ 9 1201.03 Plastic deformation, slip and dislocations in single crystals. __________________ 11 1201.03.01 Slip and dislocations _____________________________________________________ 11 1201.03.02 Other features and defects in aluminium single crystals.__________________________ 12 1201.03.03 Grain features of bulk aluminium and its alloys.________________________________ 14 1201.03.04 Plastic deformation, recrystallisation and grain growth___________________________ 18 1201.03.05 Structural transformations in aluminium alloys_________________________________ 21 1201.04 References __________________________________________________________ 21 1201.05 List of Figures _________________________________________________________ 22 TALAT Lecture 1201 2 1201.01. Basic mechanical and physical properties 1201.01.01 Background The chemical element aluminium (symbol Al) is a metal, which in its pure, bulk form is relatively soft, light and abundant - 8.07% of the Earth’s crust compared, for example, with the familiar metal iron at 5.06% (see TALAT 1101, Figure 1101.01.01). Only oxygen and silicon (as sand) are more abundant in the Earth’s crust, and yet it was only a century ago that aluminium was discovered as the most common of metals (see TALAT 1501.01; History and production process of aluminium). We are all familiar with the bronze and iron ages that considerably predate the discovery of aluminium - so why was aluminium so late in appearing on the scene? The answer, as for the pre-historic copper and bronze ages (bronze is a metallic mixture of copper and tin) and later iron and steel (a mixture of iron and a small quantity of carbon), relates to man’s technological capability not only to extract the material from the Earth’s crust but also to process the material into a useful product. Man’s discoveries and exploitation of metals - Copper Age to Bronze Age to Iron Age to Steel and finally Aluminium Copper may be found as lumps in the ground. In pre-historic times, around 8,000 BC, it was discovered that copper may be beaten cold into a useful tool (today we call this cold work hardening). Later, it was found that the use of fire to heat copper it softened (today we call this annealing) and this made it easier to fashion into a tool and implements such as cups. Later still, it was found that further addition of heat allowed the copper to melt (at 1,083.4°C), whereupon it can be cast into a variety of useful shapes. However, as a fighting weapon, a copper knife, although much less brittle than flint, very rapidly lost its cutting edge. Tin also may be found in the ground. Around 2,000 BC it was discovered that if a mixture copper and tin (today we call this an alloy) was melted and cast, the product - bronze - was much harder than pure copper. This remarkable discovery set the pattern for the major progress in civilisation known as the Bronze Age. Copper and tin are relatively scarce in the Earth’s crust compared with iron, which is abundant but in the form of iron oxide. One cannot but wonder what inspired the discovery, around 1,000 BC that by heating iron ore together with charcoal (carbon) gives metallic iron, and hence the birth of the Iron Age [the carbon combines preferentially with the oxygen from the iron oxide - carbon dioxide gas is given off, leaving metallic iron]. Iron, and later steel (an iron alloy with a small amount of carbon), became dominant as a structural material and today is still the most widely used metallic material because of its high strength and relatively low cost - it is, however, heavy and very susceptible to corrosion (rusting). Aluminium oxide is also very abundant in the Earth’s crust. However, the chemical affinity between aluminium and oxygen is very much stronger than that between iron and oxygen. Consequently, aluminium as a metal was not discovered until relatively recently and requires a large amount of energy to extract it from its ore. The great affinity of oxygen for aluminium (which produces a chemical compound, alumina Al2O3) means that the element aluminium is present in the Earth’s crust incorporated in a mineral, Bauxite ore. The technical challenge at the end of the last century was to extract aluminium metal from Bauxite. The solution - the “Hall – Héroult” process (see TALAT 1501.01) - was the development of an electrolytic process, which is still used today. A large quantity of electricity is required, and it was the development of cheaper electricity (particularly hydroelectric power) at the turn of the last century, that made the industrial production of aluminium a commercial proposition. The incentive to recycle aluminium is considerable because, compared with he energy required for primary electrolytic extraction, only a few percent of that energy level is required to remelt scrap material. Nonetheless, as a general rule, aluminium is more expensive than steel; hence, for a given application, the selection of aluminium over steel (or any other competitive material) will rely upon one or TALAT Lecture 1201 3 more of the many attributes of aluminium which make it a better choice for a particular application. Lightness in weight, the characteristic to be readily formed into useful shapes, good corrosion resistance, and high electrical and heat conductivities are just some of the potentially valuable attributes. 1201.01.02 Commercially pure aluminium Commercially pure aluminium is the product of the electrolytic cell process. It contains a low level of impurities, usually much less than 1%. Commercially pure aluminium is light in weight (2,700 kg.m-3 compared with iron at 7,870 kg.m-3) and melts at 660 °C. A lump of aluminium that has been heated to just below the melting point and allowed to cool slowly (annealed) is light in weight, is not very strong, is soft and ductile, is corrosion resistant and has high thermal and electrical conductivities - see Figure 1201.01.01 for data. If the lump is mechanically deformed at room temperature, then it becomes noticeably harder and less ductile - the material has been “work hardened”; the mechanism of work hardening will be explained later in this section. The mechanical and physical properties of commercially pure aluminium may be also be changed by deliberate additions of other elements, for example, copper (Cu), magnesium (Mg), silicon (Si) - the products are alloys and the aim of industrially useful alloys is to enhance their properties and hence make them more suitable for fabrication into useful products. Again, the mechanisms involved will be the subject of much discussion later in this chapter. Such alloy additions are small in amount (typically up to a few percent); consequently they have only a very small effect on the density, which remains low at typically 2800 kg.m-3. An exception is additions lithium (Li), density 540kg.m-3, of up to a few percent and specially developed for aerospace applications, where the aluminium-lithium alloy density is lower at 2200-2700 kg.m-3. Also, alloys of aluminium with small additions of lithium are stiffer than other aluminium alloys, which is a feature of benefit to some applications (see section on aerospace alloys, TALAT lecture 1255). TALAT Lecture 1201 4 The extremely strong affinity of aluminium for oxygen means that, at room temperature in normal air conditions, a lump of aluminium will instantaneously form a very thin layer of surface oxide. This is only a few atom layers thick; however, it is very stable and provides good protection against chemical attack. The surface oxide film formed at room temperature is amorphous (this means that the component atoms are not arranged in a regular array). Upon heating to elevated temperature, say around 550 °C, the amorphous film starts to crystallise - small regions of aluminium oxide re-arrange their atoms into a more stable, regular arrangement - small crystals are formed. Stripping of the films allows them to be examined at very high magnification in a transmission electron
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